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  [colpse]Spoiler[colpse]Chapter Fifty-Nine - LORD ABRAHAM BRISTLEE!

  I was super curious about what was happening with the Mathy dy and Amaryllis and Gabriel, but it seemed as if I wasn’t wanted, and snooping was so far from polite that I didn’t give the idea more than a passing thought. Instead I just stood in the middle of the lounge room and shifted my weight from foot to foot, uain as to what to do .

  Then Abraham saved me.

  “Oi, girlie, e on and sit with us old timers. You’ll pretty up our er of the room just by being here and you won’t wear a hole in the floor, haha!”

  I smiled, my reservatioing as Abraham’s gregarious voied across the room. He gestured to an unoccupied seat made of dark wood with big fluffy cushions. It was quite simir to his own throne-like seat, though with fewer stuffed animals surrounding it.

  “Now, what brings a young ss like you to this backwards port?”

  “Um,” I said. “Adventure, mostly.”

  “Haha!” Abraham roared. “A girl after my ow. Oh, I do love a spot of adventure in the m, then a bit of exploration iernoon and maybe a bit of a tussle with some big beastie in the evening. That’s the true man’s life! Isn’t that right boys?”

  The other men sitting around the hearth weren’t all so... Abraham-like, but they looked wiry and dangerous in their own ways. All of them were older, and all of them had a scar or two on their hands or faces. The , a grenoil with a wrinkly nose, shook his head in exasperation.

  Abraham himself looked like... well he looked like Santa Cuse if Santa hit the gym six days a week and spent the st day prowling around in the savannah looking for a lion to wrestle. He even had a pith helmet!

  “I overheard a little about your adveh those deer ds from out East. Oh, that reminds me of that time the princess of Manamere got her grubby hands on an a Crys statuette and I was tasked to fetch it. I spent a whole week crawling on my hands and knees across the Tres themselves, then I snu through the royal privy pipes until I was in the castle proper. Found the prioo. Poor ss got quite the fright when I stuck my head out in her private toiletry room. Haha!”

  I held back a giggle and sat on the edge of the seat. “Then what happened?” I asked.

  There was a chorus of ‘oh no’ from the old men around us, but they were weariive little smiles of their own, especially when Abraham lit up as if I had just annouhat it was his birthday.

  “And then, ss, I climbed out of the bowl, quite the stene, let me tell you. Cervid sewers make the ol’ Port Royal perfume smell like fresh roses. The princess beat me on the head a few times. Sollid s of her little princess-y make up kit. Haha! It didn’t help the smell any!”

  “Oh no!”

  “Oh yes indeed little miss. But no fear! It takes more than some perfume flung into his face to take out the great Abraham Bristlee!” He tugged his big manly mustache, the sort I would no doubt have if I were a cool old man instead of the exact opposite. “I ran out of the little princess’s room, without harming one hair on her furry little hide of course, I’m a gentleman, not some lowlife ruffian! Then I was accosted by the royal guard and we had ourselves a bit of a scrap! Tough fight too, all I could carry with me in the sewers were my knickers and a spoon!”

  I spped my hands over my mouth. “Were you caught?” I gasped.

  “Haha! No oches Abraham, not unless he wants it!” he decred befiving me a wink. “I ran off the guard, defeated Folsom the Spear Champion himself ahe boy covered in spoon wounds. Then I raced off into the princess’ quarters and found the Crys statuette. Then it to the roof where Raynald here issing his britches.”

  The old grenoil snorted. “No sane man would execute a pn that involved skimming over an enemy’s castle roof with a ship as ky as your Shady Lady,” he said.

  “It erfe!” Abraham said.

  “You exited right o all of their anti-dragon siege equipment!” Raynold shht back.

  I had the impression the fight was rehashed a few times already. “How did you guys make it out if there was a bunch of anti-dragon stuff around?” I asked.

  Raynold stopped and, when Abraham went to talk, flung a wooden cigar box at the man’s head to shush him up. It bounced off without so much as making Abraham flinch. “Ah, let me expin this one, Abe, the little miss might actually learn something, uh most of your sordid tales.”

  “Hah!” Abraham said. “You’re merely envious that my life was a little exg, you damned paper-pusher!”

  Raynold shook his head. “You see Miss...”

  “Broccoli, Broccoli Bunch,” I said.

  “Miss Bunch. Most cities that install the kind of ons o fight off threats in the air expect them to e from the air. But I, being both brighter and less keen on suicide than Abe here, calcuted their firing ard discovered that the primitive s the cervids use couldn’t depress low enough... that is, they couldn’t fire downwards. I merely o guide our air skimmer through the widest roads iy and over some of the walls.”

  “You tore off half the rudder,” Abraham pined.

  “That ey moved!”

  The two started to bicker bad forth over whie of them was the greater fool. I didn’t like seeing friends argue, even if it didn’t seem like it was in bad faith. “Did you aplish your mission?” I asked.

  “Oh-hoh!” Abraham said as he cut himself off halfway through the act of flinging the cigar box back at Raynold “Did we ever! Have you seen the Screaming Mountains, little Bunch?”

  “No, what are they?” I asked.

  “They’re these mountains, far off to the Southeast and just off the ti. The people there are made of crystal and when the sun rises they begin to hum. By the time midday hits a man hardly hear himself think!”

  I wao ask Abraham for some more tales, because his stories so far had been wonderful, but Amaryllis and the others chose that moment to walk bato the lounge area. Amaryllis was wearing a smug grin, Gabriel looked like he needed a stiffer drink than usual, and the Mathy dy looked like she was a step away from tearing someone’s head off.

  Then she locked eyes on me. “You’re still here?” she asked.

  “Yes ma’am,” I said as I got bato my feet.

  “Hmm, good. Gabriel, get the girl a -purse. Standard mission pay, then show her out.”

  It took a moment for the words, and their meaning, tister. Was I being kicked out of the guild? “Is this because I haven’t paid yet? Mister Rai implied it was okay to pay when I returned.”

  “No, it’s because you’re a liability. You should never have been allowed to join anyway,” the woman said.

  “What are you talking about?” Amaryllis said. “She’s perfect for this guild. She even saved my life.”

  “Be that as it may,” she tinued, “Her level is far too low, her css doesn’t seem suitable to the work, and with the amount of suspi going around it’s wiser to show her out than to keep a possible snake amongst the tadpoles.”

  Amaryllis squawked. “Fine! If Broccoli ’t join yuild, then I’m heading out too!”

  The grenoil woman stood a little taller at that. “I’m afraid I ’t let you do that. Your parents--”

  “Will hear all about your inpetence,” Amaryllis interrupted. “The only ohat mao actually help me was her,” she said while pointing right at me. “I’m not going to let you just... get rid of her.”

  The woman’s eyes narrowed. “You’re making a spectacle of this.”

  “Ahe only here is you,” Amaryllis shot back.

  Mathy looked ready to tear Amaryllis’ head off when Abraham cleared his throat. “Care to share with the rest of us, Mathy?”

  “My name is Mathide, Abraham,” the woman said. Abraham’s mustache twitched and I suspected he was trying not to smile. “And I suspect we have... had a spy in our midst. Has anyone seen Rai?”

  There was a long moment of silehat seemed to say ‘no.’

  “World damn us all,” she muttered.

  “So, because of that skinny little snake yoing to punish poor Broccoli here?” Abraham asked.

  I took a small step back as Mathide looked my way. The woman was dht terrifying. “It’s okay?” I said. I couldn’t just let everyone else speak over me. “I really wao join yuild, but if you won’t have me, I just... go?”

  “No, you ’t,” Amaryllis said. She was gring at the baathilde’s head as if she could set it on fire with her eyes alone.

  “How about a promise then?” Abraham asked. He pulled the cigar box--now resting on his p-- open and took out a cigar. A snap of his fingers had a small fme dang on his index which he used to slowly light the cigar. “If the girls o be safe... well, I happen to be heading out west, to Greenshade. I take them with me and drop them off at the guild there. It’s about as far from Trenten as you get without running through the desert or swimming the sea.”

  Mathilde frow that before she turo Amaryllis. “Would that be acceptable? The Exploration Guild branch there is smaller, but there’s plenty of work to be had. I’ll eve y your human friend here if you trust her so much.”

  “I do, and it is,” Amaryllis said.

  “Hoh-ho! Abraham Bristlee, saving the day once more! And I didn’t eveo stand up for it. Raynold, fetch me a gss of that scotch you’ve been hiding away!”

  “Jump off a cliff,” Raynold said.

  I raised a hand, just like I had been taught to do in css and waited for Mathilde and Amaryllis to both look my way. “Um, I’m sorry, but what exactly is going on?”

  Amaryllis was the first to answer. “Rai has gone missing. He accepted you as a member without going through the proper els and is the one whed all the missions. Mathilde here thinks he’s some sort of troublemaker. I think he ought to be hanged f to have me kidhis so-called leader here thinks the solution is to kick you out of the Guild even though you’ve done more work to stop their own mistakes than anyone else. I, as a person that isn’t an idiot, am keen on pointing out how utterly devoid of sehat is.”

  Mathide croaked and it didn’t sound all that happy. “We’ll get to the bottom of it, Miss Albatross. If the Exploration Guild is good at ohing it’s disc things.” she looked my way. “Miss Bunch... I wish we had met under better circumstances.”

  I smiled right back. “It’s oo te to bee friends, and I think I uand why you, um, tried to kick me out. It’s okay.”

  “Too damned nice,” Amaryllis muttered.

  “Right-oh!” Abraham said as he jumped to his feet with surprising spryness. “The Shady Lady will be ready to depart first thing in the m. You dies just o ask around to find it. It’s like a small adventure!”

  Things were moving a little fast, but I nodded anyway and tried on an even bigger smile for size.

  From what I could tell the business with Mister Rai was suspect. He had seemed nice, but nice people didn’t kidnap girls, to say the least. It kind of soured my impressions of the guild a little bit, but going on an adventure of sorts with Mister Bristlee sounded like a jolly good time. That, and Amaryllis had stepped up to defend me, which.. Well, I had happy little butterflies fluttering in my tummy at the thought.

  “That doesn’t leave us much time,” Amaryllis said. “e on Broccoli, let’s go. We have things that need doing before we set off.”

  “Oh, um, right. See you tomorrow then, Mister Bristlee?” I asked.

  “Sure thing, young Miss!”

  ***

  SpoilerWe're ing up on some of my favourite chapers! Also, Abe is a hoot to write!

  See you on Friday!

  [colpse]