The residents of Oakenglen had been both amazed and appalled at what had happened on the night of Soltra’s rescue: amazement for the rescue of the young mage and the defeat of the Brigands, and appallment at the fact that the burning of the old flour mill could have set fire to the forest in which they all lived!
Two days after that incident, KG and Soltra had volunteered to return to the mill, and there were a variety of reasons for this:
They wanted to assess the damage that the accidental fire had caused to the ancient structure, to recover some of the possessions stolen by the marauding miscreants over the past few months and, if necessary, to see what became of Fiona Fox and the Brigands themselves…
To that end, the bard and the mage found themselves walking down that same forest path that morning - KG’s guitar was strapped to his back as always, and the bottom of Soltra’s staff thumped softly into the dirt as they went along, joined by the quiet shuffling of the leather bag the mage was sporting across one shoulder.
“Well, this is a lot nicer than whit wis goin’ down the last time I went up here,” KG said.
“Is that so?” Replied the snow leopard.
“Well - you’re no needin’ rescued, for a start!”
They both laughed at that, and continued on up the forest path towards the mill.
Sunlight streaked overhead in golden shafts through the thick canopy of leaves, bringing a cheery morning light down on them as the trees began to gradually thin out, and the sounds of the rushing river floated towards them.
Though the accidental fire had only had its way with the mill for around a minute, its effects were plain to see, even on the outside.
The severe heat of the flour-fuelled fire had burned away all of the green moss coating the stone walls that comprised the mill’s structure, leaving them bare and grey.
The smell of burned wood permeated the air around Soltra and KG in the little clearing as they approached, causing the snow leopard’s nose to wrinkle while the python tried to keep his mouth shut to prevent his forked tongue from tasting it.
The area in front of the mill resembled a muddy field because of the giant water ball Soltra had used to put the fire out; indeed, the two broken halves of the door that the water ball had dislodged were still lying untouched in the mud, along with the multitude of extinguished torches that the Brigands had been using.
Speaking of the Brigands, though…
“Um, there’s naebody here…” KG noted, a hint of suspicion in his voice.
“So there isn’t,” Soltra replied, gripping his staff in both hands. “We need to be careful, here.”
The pair slowed their pace to a cautious skulk as they approached the old structure through the still-wet mud, watching out for any signs of an ambush that may be lurking inside the mill.
The claggy wet dirt squelched under their boots as they trudged past the torches and the bisected door as they reached the entrance of the mill, where KG poked his head through the threshold.
“Bloody hell…”
Soltra followed the python into the doorway, and, upon seeing the state of the mill’s interior, was forced to agree with his compatriot’s sentiments.
“By Tikal!”
It looked absolutely hellish - the large room that they found themselves in was darkened by the blackness of burnt wood and the greyness of ash, which the morning sun could do little to dispel.
There was not a piece of wood that hadn’t been affected by the fire’s brief, but costly, attack - the planks and chunks that were still solid had been utterly blackened by the fire, and most of it lay haphazardly in a bed of ashes that was spread around the floor.
The ash crunched under KG and Soltra’s feet as they made their way properly into the mill - both of them stepped lightly, as though any overly heavy footfalls would bring the whole dilapidated building down on their heads.
The smell inside was ten times as bad as the air on the outside, cloying and thick as it invaded their lungs.
“Urgh, fuck,” KG choked out, wiping his mouth with a hand. “It smells like Bracken’s house in here…”
“We’ll need baths once we get back to the village,” Soltra nodded. “But, for now, we need to see what hasn’t been roasted in here…”
This started them poking about the ruined room for anything they could find, being careful not to touch anything that might fall on them.
It was hardly a glorious quest for treasure - frankly, it was more akin to sorting through the belongings of a recently deceased relative.
The two dug through piles of still-warm ash, KG using his boots and Soltra using his staff, occasionally coming upon things that lay buried beneath the soot:
The head of one of Holt’s favourite blacksmithing hammers, its wooden handle having evidently burned away; a small pile of golden coins that sat in a blackened leather pouch, which had protected them from the fire; a tarnished, golden, heart-shaped locket; a steely dagger that thankfully seemed to have no blood on its blade…
“Hmm, I think that this is all that we’re probably going to get from in here,” Soltra said, kneeling down to scoop up all of the recovered possessions, before wiping the remaining ash off of them and depositing them in his leather satchel.
“Right, well,” KG replied, looking around the burned room with a mixture of pity and distaste at the state of it. “We need to get it back to the village so we can see who they all belo-”
But the snake was interrupted, his speech cut across by a most ominous series of sounds.
There came a deep groaning from up above them, followed by what was clearly the steady splintering of wood!
Soltra began to look up at the black, dilapidated ceiling to see what was happening, but he had little opportunity to do so as he felt a pair of hands on the collar of his coat.
“Out, NOW!” KG roared, practically flinging himself and his friend out of the door, and not a moment too soon - the bard and the mage had only just cleared the stone doorway of the mill when the ceiling came down with an almighty crunch of wood and clatter of stone, right where they had been standing mere seconds before!
A large, billowing cloud of dark grey ash followed them out of the door, blown out by the force of the ceiling’s collapse - big, grey flakes of it rained down upon them as they lay sprawled in the dirt.
“Urgh, we’ll definitely need baths,” Soltra groaned, heaving himself up from the ground.
“That’s the second time I’ve had tae save ye from this mill!” KG laughed as he did the same.
As they stood, covered in mud and ash, they saw that the doorway of the mill was still intact, but it was now utterly filled with an impenetrable wall of stones and wood.
“We definitely won’t get any more out of that,” Soltra remarked as KG began to brush the ash from his guitar.
Just then, though, the mage caught sight of something out of the corner of one teal eye…
“Look here,” he said, pointing down at the mud they’d just risen from.
The pupils in KG’s eyes contracted into slits as the bard beheld something they’d both missed:
In amongst the brownish mud lay what were plainly several boot prints - clearly coming from many different sizes of feet, the prints led away from the mill and out into the forest.
“So they got away, then…” KG frowned. “Dunno about you, but I don’t fancy following them.”
“I’ll agree with that,” Soltra murmured, snatching his dropped satchel out of the mud. “Still - it does make me wonder where those Brigands went off to…”
-----------------------
Far, far to the west, there stood the fearsome Mount Mobius.
The black mountain rose high into the air, reaching for the clouds while looking imperiously down on the surrounding countryside as if to challenge anyone to stop its skyward conquest.
Indeed, it was the tallest thing for miles around, with nothing that could even begin to be described as a competitor to its imposing height.
But a close look at the composition of the mountain - not to mention the huge crater that resided where the peak should have been - would tell you that this was not a mountain, but a volcano.
Mount Mobius’ surrounding vegetation, having been burned away one too many times by the volcano’s fiery outbursts, had long since taken its leave – the lava and ash that had spewed forth from its last eruption had settled in a great circle of dark, rippling rock that covered the radius of the volcano’s immediate surroundings.
Ages ago, before the concept of what a volcano was came to be, the ancient peoples of the area thought that the gods had captured some evil monster and imprisoned it within the mountain – they assumed that the eruptions were the occasional raging of the trapped beast within.
And yet, there were very few ordinary people who could claim to remember Mount Mobius’ last eruption, as such a thing had not occurred in well over a century.
However, there was a very good reason for that…
Down below the crater, through the wide throat pipe and past all of the branching offshoot tunnels lay the central magma chamber - the very stomach of the volcano itself.
This vast chamber, from which the molten rock had burst so many times in the past, had never been explored by any normal people - despite its hundred year dormancy, Mount Mobius itself still seemed to exude imperilment and danger.
And yet, if anybody managed to somehow abseil down the main shaft of the volcano, or to successfully navigate its labyrinthine network of offshoot tunnels, they would not find the central magma chamber at all to be what was expected.
Instead of a great bubbling basin of superheated molten rock, the chamber was relatively empty, its great, craggy walls curving up imposingly into a grim, impenetrable ceiling.
These walls were lit by torches that hung in metallic brackets - torches that blazed not orange, but with an eerie, bright green flame.
This viridian light illuminated yet more strange structures within this underground room: namely, the fact that there was furniture!
Great chairs, pews and tables had been fashioned from the same dark rock, which all glowed green not only with the fire from the torches about them, but also with the fire from the huge, elaborate chandelier affixed to the ceiling above.
Fiona Fox eyed this great circle of stone and candles with some wariness - it hung above her and the rest of the Brigands like some great gothic death-trap, complete with unnecessarily large spikes in the bottom of it.
Anyone could see that these unnatural structures had not been fashioned by mortal means…
But she had little time to admire the decor before the wooden end of a halberd poked her squarely in the back.
“Keep movin’,” came the dull, yet threatening, voice of the guard behind her.
She wanted to bite back at this treatment with a stinging rebuke, but the fact that said guard was a brute of a beast encased in thick, dark armour made her bite her tongue.
Sadly, the other Brigands weren’t quite as forward-thinking as their leader:
“I don’t like this place…”
“Can’t we go ‘ome?”
“Oi, don’t poke me so hard!”
Their moans and groans fell upon the deaf ears of the armoured guards, who continued to shepherd them deeper into the chamber with cold indifference.
With a handful of intimidating guards behind them, the Brigands were herded into a group in front of the foremost fixture in the room.
Before them was what looked like a big, black dome - a great half-sphere emerging from the dark rock of the floor and rising up about ten feet.
Steps had been carved into this black rock, their surfaces shiny and smooth, and they led up to a tall and imposing throne that was just as spiky and dark as the rest of the furniture around them.
Sat atop this throne, leaning on one arm at her ease, was the Brigands’ employer.
Given their reputation for being rather isolationist as a whole, it was a rare sight to see an echidna outside their reputed homeland of Angel Island, but there one sat on her commanding throne of obsidian.
The devilish scarlet colour of her curvy body, scantily covered as it was by her spiked black attire, stood out against the dark stone of her surroundings, her terrible beauty framed by her perfectly-kept cerise-coloured hair with her signature red echidna dreadlocks hanging behind her head.
Her eyes shone with the same evil green as the unnatural fire lighting the underground chamber, piercing and malevolent as they gazed down upon her literal captive audience.
“Brigands to see you, Mistress,” said the same guard that had led the Brigands into the chamber, before standing off to the side.
“Fiona Fox and the Brigands,” came the feminine voice from the red echidna on the throne - smooth as silk, but cold as ice at the same time. “But what’s this? I see no sign of the mage you were hired to deal with – I was expecting to see him bound in chains, or for you to present me with his head in a sack…”
The echidna stood from her throne before pointing a black-nailed finger imperiously down at them. “Explain yourselves, now!”
“M-M-Mistress!” Fiona faltered. “I... we tried to do as you asked, b-but we were thwarted!”
“Oh? ‘Thwarted’?” The echidna began to stalk down the stairs that descended from her throne, her high heels clicking and clacking loudly with every step. “How, pray tell, were you ‘thwarted’: Did the villagers that you’ve been terrorising all these months band together to attack you? Or perhaps they managed to acquire soldiers from an outside source?”
Fiona sank to her knees almost subconsciously, as though the descending echidna was somehow forcing her to the floor the closer that she came.
“Um, well… it wasn’t any of those things, Mistress…”
Fiona’s brain worked feverishly to come up with an adequate excuse, one that would enable her and her Brigands to escape from this volcano unharmed.
She had barely begun to formulate a response to the echidna’s question when the little voice of Bogbain the rat piped up out of nowhere:
“It was a bard, ma’am!”
Fiona whipped her head around to glare at Bogbain, hoping that her dirty look would implicitly tell him to be quiet.
But it was no use.
“A bard. A bard stopped you.”
Lien-Da reached the floor, where she stood glaring witheringly with her hands on her hips.
“You mean to tell me that a single, lowly musician was all that it took to overcome you?!”
Amazingly, a few of the Brigands found now to be the perfect time to speak up:
“’E set the place on fire!”
“And he hit Brodgar over the head with his guitar!”
“Silence!” Lien-Da’s cruel voice rang out in the chamber, making the Brigands quail in fright and cutting off any further excuse-making. “You were given precise information on the mage’s whereabouts and precise instructions on what to do with him, and yet you still managed to fail me! Thanks to your bungling, there still remains a mage out there who poses a threat to my plans!”
“Mistress, please, give us another chance!” Fiona beseeched, prostrated on the dark stone floor before the echidna witch. “We can make this right!”
“I’m afraid I no longer believe that,” Lien-Da sneered, her lip curling malevolently as she exposed her fangs.
She stretched out her right hand, her black-nailed fingers splayed out authoritatively as though she were commanding a puppet – horrifyingly, little flickers of green static seemed to be flaring from those sharp talons, like sparks off of a grindstone.
“I will make this right… by ridding myself of your incompetence!”
Before any of the Brigands could realise what was about to happen, the green static grew into full-on electricity…
…and it hit Fiona first.
The pain was so appalling, so immediate that sounds failed to materialise in Fiona’s mouth – her body jerked and spasmed out of control as though her very nerves had been set alight!
“Miss Fiona, no!” cried Brodgar, springing forward from the group of Brigands to try and help the crimson vixen.
This proved to be a bad choice: the enormous bear’s paw was barely a foot from Fiona when a nasty bolt of the green electricity jumped straight into his palm.
Lien-Da cackled with glee as the viridian lightning arced from Fiona to Brodgar, the bear receiving the same electrical torturing that was befalling his leader.
With an almost lascivious look on her face, the evil echidna pointed her other hand at the rest of the forlorn Brigands, and the same vile viridescent lightning struck them as well.
It was over a minute before Lien-Da decided that they’d suffered enough.
The glowing green lightning ceased as the crimson echidna drew her hands back, leaving the Brigands to lie twitching on the ground before her.
“Alright, playtime is over - get up, all of you!”
Despite the punishment they’d just received, Fiona Fox and the Brigands began to rise to their feet.
They rose up slowly, almost like marionettes, limbs jerking and twitching from the lightning they’d suffered through.
Their faces utterly blank, they stood there like bowling pins with not a hint that they had gone through anything…
…apart from the fact that, like the black-armoured guards, they all were now sporting noticeably glowing green eyes.
“You,” Lien-Da pointed an ebony nail at the guard who had led the Brigands in. “Take these fools away to be processed - I’m sure they will be of more use to me as guards.”
“At once, mistress.”
Fiona and the Brigands blankly followed the guard back out of the chamber as Lien-Da smirked.
Once they had gone from her sight, Lien-Da turned to walk out of a separate tunnel with an arrogant spring in her step - turning unfortunate souls into new recruits for her steadily-growing army was always one of her favourite activities…
But however pleasurable it may be, such a thing was small potatoes compared to her master plan…
The room that Lien-Da sauntered into was guarded at the door by two more green-eyed guards, who stepped aside at once to let her in.
While the throne room was presented as intimidating and threatening, with its green flames and spiked decor, this chamber was quite different.
Though the tunnel she had strode down was lit by torches bearing the same green flames as in her throne room, the bracketed torches on the walls of this smaller room blazed with blue flames - an utterly abrasive ambience compared to the throne room, harsh on the eyes of any who entered.
In addition to this, it was also much emptier - only two pieces of furniture were stationed in this mostly bare chamber.
One was a throne, not dissimilar to the one present in the throne room, though its form was decidedly smaller and rounder - it was less likely to be seen by anyone, therefore negating the need for ostentatiousness.
It was positioned in front of the only other piece of furniture, which was a long, wide altar, made of the same abundant volcanic rock.
Or was it a workbench? A table, perhaps?
Whatever it was, it didn’t currently matter to the person laid upon its smooth black surface.
The figure shook and trembled as Lien-Da approached, a truly evil leer on her face as she observed their discomfort.
Upon the altar was laid a male hedgehog, who was quivering, utterly shaking like a flower in a hurricane!
The hedgehog had been completely stripped bare, not a scrap of clothing or armour to hide his modesty or shield him from the perpetually cold stone beneath him, his blue and peach fur on show for all to see.
His gaunt features were screwed up in clear discomfort as he wriggled in place, his eyes screwed shut, his spines flattened underneath his body and his mouth set in an unpleasant grimace, and it was no wonder:
Black tendrils, as dark and cold as the stone he was surrounded with, were creeping over his body almost lecherously - some were as thick as his wrist, some as thin as his little toe, but all of them were greedily roaming his frame with complete freedom, infecting the hedgehog with unholy dark magic.
“Three days,” Lien-Da crowed, looking down at her cobalt-coloured prisoner. “Three whole days of exposure to one of the worst of my spells, and still you haven’t given up!”
The echidna witch reached down and stroked the hedgehog’s cheek with sarcastic gentleness.
“Your resilience is as impressive as it is vexing, Sir Sonic!”
Despite his torture, a smile crept onto the twitching face of Sir Sonic the Hedgehog of Knothole.
“Gotta… do… better… than… that!”
Lien-Da narrowed her eyes at Sonic’s insolence, but her smirk never faded.
“Look at me, hedgehog,” the echidna witch cooed. When Sonic’s eyes didn’t open, she grabbed him by the jaw, forcing his head to face her. “Look at me, hedgehog!”
Under the pressure, Sonic acquiesced, involuntarily letting his eyelids flutter open.
Sir Sonic’s right eye sported an iris that was a radiant emerald green, as it had been since his birth, but, to Lien-Da’s satisfaction, the left eye no longer matched it.
Instead, that left eye had been completely blackened, resembling a beaker filled with tar - in addition, the iris was not green, but a devilish orange-red, like that of a glowing branding iron.
Letting go of Sir Sonic’s face, Lien-Da laughed wickedly.
“Make all the little quips and jibes you want, Sir Sonic - soon you will belong to me!”
“You’ll… have… to… kill… me…!” Sonic hissed.
“Oh, I considered that, make no mistake,” Lien-Da sneered. “But the thought of utterly bending you to my will as my ultimate enforcer completely trumps something as paltry as merely robbing you of your life.”
When anger started to mix in with the pained grimace on Sir Sonic’s face, she knew she was truly getting to him.
“Picture it now, Sir Sonic,” Lien-Da salaciously stroked a particularly thick tendril that had wormed its way around his thrashing torso. “You, as my ultimate weapon - with my power and that scurrilous speed of yours, I can point you at any stronghold in the Kingdom of Acorn, and you will have it utterly flattened in a matter of minutes!”
“N-no…” Sonic whispered through gritted teeth.
Then, the echidna grabbed Sonic by his wrist. “I will fling you like a spear across the land, leaving nothing but death and destruction, nothing but cruel calamity in your wake!”
“NO!” Sonic cried.
“All pockets of resistance will be snuffed out - they will join my cause, or be put to the sword!” Lien-Da screeched, the volume of her voice rising to match that of the tortured hedgehog’s.
“Mobo…tropolis… will… stop… you…”
“O-ho-ho-ho!” Lien-Da cackled. “I think I’ll save the Acorn Kingdom’s capital city for last; your people will wail with despair as their allies and avenues of escape are cut off one by one! Your friends will scream in anguish as they see the mighty walls of their city turned to rubble by my army!”
“Won’t… let… you…!”
“...and the royal Acorn family will cry with despondency when their so-called ‘Knight of the Wind’ leads them into slavery as I take their throne for myself!”
“GRAAA-glmph!”
Sonic’s anguished cry was cut off by a black tendril slipping its way over his mouth, forcing him into involuntary silence.
Her mighty chest heaving from her exclamation, Lien-Da straightened up, before backing into her throne.
Her thick red rear spread out over the seat, and she crossed one thick leg over the other, watching Sir Sonic’s renewed struggles with malicious pleasure.
-----------------------
P-ting, p-ting!
The bell rang out loud and clear through the streets of Oakenglen, its chiming reaching in through every window and doorway.
P-ting, p-ting!
“Bonjour, mes amis! Réveillez-vous!”
The voice of the bell-ringer also sounded out through the streets of Oakenglen - it was male, a little high-pitched and speaking in a language that nobody in the village recognised.
The voice, along with its bell, sought out every ear there to hear it, whether or not the owners of said ears were willing.
Slowly, the residents of Oakenglen crept out of their houses and abodes in response to the incessant and unending bell-ringing.
They found that the source of the noise was standing atop the roof above the large well in the centre of the village.
The coyote, clad ostentatiously in red and blue, was standing on the slate covering with one boot raised up, as though he were some sort of hero.
“Ah, zere you are, mes amis!”
Upon spotting the stunned villagers walking towards him, this strangely-garbed stranger lowered his brass hand bell and opened his arms welcomingly.
“Je m’appelle Antoine de Coolette,” the coyote announced impressively as the residents of Oakenglen gathered in front of him. “And I come from ze Keengdom of Acorn weeth ze beeg annoncement!”
Instead of rapturous expressions, Antoine was met with the congregation of villagers raising their eyebrows while muttering to themselves:
“Who the bloody ‘ell…?”
“Who’s this, then?”
“Dresses like a right ponce…”
Not hearing any of this, Antoine continued:
“Une catastrophe très grave ‘as befallen ze magnifique Keengdom of Acorn! Ze foremost chevalier in ze land, Sir Soneek of Knot’ole, ‘as disparu!”
Here, the coyote paused, expecting a great, horrified gasp at the fate of the greatest knight in the Kingdom of Acorn.
“…eh?” said Davan the baker.
Antoine blinked.
“‘Eh’? What you are meaning, ‘eh’? I am seekeeng des héros, to be taking part in a glorious quête to find ze lost Sir Soneek! “
“...who is this tit?”
“’E sounds like one of them politicians…”
Despite this, Antoine de Coolette cleared his throat, before continuing on with his pitch:
“Zis quête weel be undoubtedly fraught weeth danger et l’adversité, but ze rewards weel be incroyable! You weel not be ‘aving to leeve in a place like zis any more, eh!”
There was a pause.
And then the heckling started.
--------------------------------------
In the spare room of the house of Grundowinch, Soltra the mage was just pulling his socks on when a knock at the window made him jump.
Turning to look at the round, porthole-shaped window, he recognised the scaled countenance of the town bard all but pressed against the glass.
Quickly recovering from his initial fright, the snow leopard opened the window to let KG’s voice in.
“Here, Soltra, get yer clothes on and get oot here!” The python grinned up at the magician. “All the villagers are harassin’ some bloke in the square!”
Soltra blinked at this news, before immediately speeding up his efforts to dress himself.
Once he was ready, he rushed from the spare room and into the main room of the round house.
“Slow down, boy!” barked Grundowinch, who was currently in the process of restocking his shelves of the potion ingredients destroyed by the Brigands a couple of nights ago - the ladder that the elderly snow leopard was using to reach the topmost shelves shook alarmingly as his grandson ran past.
“Sorry, Grandad!” Soltra shouted over his shoulder as he headed towards the door. “KG says there’s something happening in the square!”
“Hmph, well- Mind your head!”
THUMP!
“Ow!”
Grundowinch just shook his head as Soltra’s forehead made contact once again with the door lintel, turning back to his shelf-stocking.
--------------------------------------
“Aie!!” came the shrill cry of Antoine de Coolette, ducking to avoid the first clump of sod that made its way towards his head.
“’Ave that, ya knob!”
“Come here and make fun of our village, will you?”
In retrospect, his position on top of the roof over the well was as ill-advised as his harmless little joke.
“Arrêtez, arrêtez!” he cried, as lumps of earth, stones, cutlery and all manner of other objects flew through the air at him. “Arrêt, you animals!”
He was just beginning to think of retreating and climbing down from the well for his own safety, when an old wooden axe handle, flung by Holt the blacksmith, struck him straight on the forehead.
Antoine sailed backwards through the air, completing a full 360-degree rotation before landing in a heap on the ground.
The villagers paused their bombardment of the hapless coyote messenger to laugh and jeer at this acrobatic spectacle.
Winded but not injured, Antoine de Coolette picked himself up off of the ground half a minute later – covered in dust and dirt, and with his red and blue robes filthy and dishevelled, he was in a considerably worse state than when he entered the village barely twenty minutes prior.
Deciding he’d rather leave than suffer any more embarrassment or missiles, Antoine made to leave, but not before treating the people of Oakenglen to a tongue-lashing:
“Salauds! Enfoirés! Vos mères viennent de l'enfer!”
Shaking his fist as he retreated backwards, the messenger from the Kingdom of Acorn heard a couple of new voices coming from up the dirt road.
“Aye, that’s him.”
“Wow, nice robes!”
Whipping his blond head around, Antoine beheld KG and Soltra walking towards him.
“And what you two are wanting?” He huffed. “Come to laugh at moi like zeez ozzer fuels?”
“What? No!” Soltra exclaimed. “We heard you were offering a quest of some kind!”
Looking between the two of them, Antoine sighed in a mixture of relief and frustration.
“Go to ze Keengdom of Acorn and seek ze Preencess, she weel tell you what to be doing to save Sir Soneek. But as for moi…”
The coyote drew himself up as best as he could, before sticking his nose in the air.
“...I weel be taking my leave of zis place! Per’aps ze denizens of le prochain village weel be more welcoming!”
“Take yer terrible wig with ya!” One villager shouted from out of view as Antoine stormed off.
“Ta gueule!” he shouted back.
-----------------------
“A quest, you say?”
It was easily the most animated that Soltra or KG had ever seen the old potion-maker.
At the mention of this supposed quest, Grundowinch seemed to straighten up, bustling about in the spare room as he picked up items to shove into Soltra’s brown leather satchel, which lay on the bed in between the bard and the mage.
He had the same vim and vigour as an excited mother getting her son ready for his first day at school, with a glow in his teal eyes and a noticeable spring in his step.
“A real quest’s not a thing to be sniffed at, you know,” Grundowinch said, picking up a brass telescope and inserting it, along with its folded up wooden tripod, smoothly into the little satchel that was about a tenth of its overall size. “Can’t remember the last time I heard of a quest going around…”
“The guy said we’d have to rescue a ‘Knight’, whatever that is,” KG said from a nearby chair, his slit-pupiled eyes watching as Grundowinch picked up an iron mini-cauldron.
“You’ve clearly never lived under royalty before, boy!” the elder snow leopard chuckled as he hefted the cauldron in his arms. “‘Knight’ is a title bestowed by kings and queens upon people who have served their realm in a usually militaristic detail - hold that satchel open for me, would you?”
KG obliged, holding the top of the brown leather bag open as Grundowinch positioned the iron pot at the mouth of it - with a great shove, he pushed the cauldron into the much-too-small satchel, where it promptly disappeared without trace.
“So, that’ll be the ‘Sir Sonic’ the quest would have us saving, then,” Soltra nodded. “I- a coat rack, Grandad? Really?”
“What? Of course!” Grundowinch groused as he made his way towards the satchel with the aforementioned wooden pole in his hands “You never know when you’ll need one of these to take someone’s coat - it’s a good way of ingratiating yourself with a lady, believe you me. Oh, and speaking of…”
Upon depositing the coat rack in the satchel, Grundowinch reached into the top drawer of the chest of drawers set underneath the window, withdrawing a ball of what appeared to be pale blue wool.
“My lucky socks - I want you to have them.”
He handed them over to Soltra, who unwrapped them to look them over.
Upon seeing them, he realised that they were of some considerable age - they had clearly been a deep blue, once upon a time, but the years had sapped them of their hue and turned them almost grey.
The socks - which were embroidered with golden stars which had long since turned a more sand-like colour - had also clearly been well-used, as evidenced by the threadbare patches at the heels and toes, with these parts more resembling the texture of a sieve than woollen footwear!
“Bloody hell, Grandad, these are ancient!” Soltra exclaimed, trying not to laugh.
“Look at the state of them!” KG sniggered. “What’s so lucky about these, then?”
“These are the socks I was wearing when I met your grandmother some sixty years ago, Soltra.”
The complete sincerity in both the voice and face of the old snow leopard made the laughter drain from KG and Soltra’s faces.
“I… I’ll keep them, Grandad.” Soltra said, a note of sombreness in his voice.
There was a poignant pause as grandfather and grandson looked at each other, before KG spoke up:
“Antoine said we have to go to a place called the ‘Kingdom of Acorn’. You ever heard of such a place, Grundy?”
“The Kingdom of Acorn?” Grundowinch whipped his head around to face KG upon hearing the name, his long white hair and whiskers all a-flutter as he did so. “Did you say the Kingdom of Acorn? Well, that’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time!”
All of a sudden, the expression of excitement he’d had while packing Soltra’s things was back on the old alchemist’s face.
“The Kingdom of Acorn, I can’t believe it!” Grundowinch beamed. “Haven’t been there in ages - in fact, if these bones of mine weren’t so old, I’d be coming with you!”
“So you’ve actually been there yourself?” Soltra asked, sitting back down on the bed. “What’s it like, Grandad?”
“Boys, if I were to tell you all about it, that quest would be finished before you ever got near the place!” The old cat said with a smile… which slipped a little as he recalled something. “It lies across the sea, though - I think you’d probably have to charter a boat to get there…”
“A boat?” Soltra exclaimed, turning to look at KG. “Antoine didn’t mention that bit…”
“Damn, and I don’t know how to sail,” The snake replied. “Where would we even get one?”
“Neriloch,” Grundowinch promptly replied, scooping up the folded form of a large green tent and stowing it in Soltra’s satchel. “It’s the closest port town to us - if there’s a boat to be taken, it’ll be in the harbour there.”
“Neriloch…” KG said, rolling the name over in his mind. “How far away is it, Grundy?”
“Four hours walk.”
There was silence in the room, before Soltra sighed.
“Tikal help us…”
“Come on, boy, don’t be like that, now,” Grundowinch frowned, placing his hands on his hips as he sternly addressed his grandson. “You’ll have to get used to doing things like that - it’s a quest, not a birthday party!”
Soltra did his best not to huff as his grandfather went on:
“Now, when you get there, you should absolutely look up my old friend Merlynx - he and I went to the same college and let me tell you that he is the best wizard I’ve ever come across!”
“Ah, we’ll see if we can get his help, right?” KG nodded.
“Since he’s the one I won the dragon scale from, I was hoping that you’d tell him that he’s still rubbish at cards!” The potion-seller laughed.
-----------------------
KG exited Grundowinch’s round house, followed closely by Soltra and finally the old man himself.
The three of them came to a halt at the end of the short garden path, their feet surrounded by the alchemist’s ever-blooming flowers, and turned to face each other.
“Now then, boy,” Grundowinch said, gripping his grandson by the shoulders. “I’m taking a big risk by letting you go on this quest - I know your mother would flay me alive if she knew I was doing this - but I think you’re ready for it.”
“Cheers, Grandad…” Soltra replied, looking down at his grandfather’s wrinkled, earnest face and not really knowing what to say.
“And you,” Grundowinch let go of Soltra’s shoulders to round on KG. “You keep him safe, you hear me?”
“Nae worries, Grundy!” KG smiled. “I’ll be with him all the way!”
“Alright, well then,” Grundowinch nodded, turning back to Soltra. “You’d best be off, then - see if you can’t get a pair of trousers that actually fit you while you’re there!”
Soltra pursed his lips, trying not to laugh at the elder snow leopard’s words. “I will do, Grandad.”
“And, for the love of Gaia, be safe… the pair of you.”
Soltra’s bottom lip quivered at this, but he held them steady.
Seeing the two spotted cats looking at each other, KG moved forward, taking Soltra gently by the arm. “Come on, big lad, let’s get going - I don’t know if this Neriloch place has a bedtime, but we’d better get a move on and get there in good time.”
Soltra allowed himself to be pulled away by the python, and they both trod the dirt road away from Grundowinch’s round house towards the forest that surrounded Oakenglen.
As he watched the bard and the mage leave the village, a bulbous tear slipped out of the corner of Grundowinch’s eye, rolling down his wrinkled face and settling in his beard.
-----------------------
“This is boring as hell.”
“Mate, it’s been 25 minutes.”
Soltra sighed as he and KG walked the dirt road side by side - having spent the last few years or so being educated in the ways of magic in the relatively cushy Bluestaff Academy down in Deerfell, the snow leopard clearly wasn’t reacting well to the thought of 4 hours of continuous walking.
“Urgh, I should have taken more teleportation classes,” he opined, slamming the base of his staff down into the dirt as he trudged alongside KG.
“You can teleport?” KG sounded incredulous.
“Yeah, but it’s only 50 feet, and the recharge time is an hour.”
KG laughed out loud at this revelation. “An hour! At that rate, we’d reach Neriloch in, what, a week?”
Soltra scowled at this, so KG changed tack slightly. “So, what did you learn down in Deerfell, then?”
"Oh, Abjuration mostly, but Evocation is standard for first years..."
"Abrasion and Evo-what?" KG replied, completely nonplussed.
Soltra blinked… then straightened up, squaring his shoulders and putting a touch more spring into his step than there had previously been.
"Abjuration: The study of Shields and Banishment.” There was a hint of smugness running though the snow leopard’s words as he sensed an opportunity to flaunt his magical knowledge at KG. “I can protect myself from blades, send wind under my feet to slow my fall, or turn off any spell another wizard throws at me."
“Cool,” KG nodded with a smirk. “But you still can’t teleport more than 50 feet, eh?”
“I-er, well…” Soltra’s smug smile came to an end, pierced like a balloon by KG’s needling question. “As I said; I never attended many of those classes!”
Adjusting the leather strap holding his guitar to his back, KG continued. "So - learn anything else useful at that academy of yours?"
Soltra thought for a moment. "Well, I can always ‘Pass Without Trace’..."
"Eh?"
"It helps you become much harder to spot when you’re in the shadows, the trees, the fog and whathaveyou. Makes it really easy to hide if you can't go invisible. Just don't cast it standing in a field, it won’t really work."
Once they had walked for a little longer, Soltra turned to KG:
"What about you then? Where'd you study the guitar? Waterdeep, somewhere like that?"
"Nope, never heard of wherever that is." KG replied, adopting a slightly sentimental smile "I've had a guitar in my possession for as far back as I can remember, honestly."
Soltra raised an eyebrow. “Well you must have learnt it from somewhere. Spagonia? Soleanna? Some musical academy, surely?”
“I’m flattered, but I’m mostly self-taught,” KG’s sentimental smile slid slightly from his face, dragging down the corners of his mouth. “The first person who taught me may have been... my father..."
The change of expression on the snake’s face did not go unnoticed by the mage. “Ah - not a pleasant tale, I take it?”
“Hmph, not one that I’d ever enjoy telling,” KG’s thin upper lip curled.
"Fair enough, I shan’t pry into my rescuer’s dirty laundry,” Soltra nodded. “Anyhow - you liking the new guitar?”
As Soltra had hoped, KG’s souring demeanour changed instantly - the bard swung the dinosaur scale instrument from his back and into his hands.
"Damn, what nice noises this thing makes!" With that, KG plucked a few chords on his guitar, and the crisp late morning air was filled with magical, almost glowing notes of music. “I've no idea how it works, but whatever you and Grundy did to it was special!"
The slightly smug, ‘I-know-something-you-don’t-know’ smirk returned to the snow leopard’s face as he launched into his explanation:
“Well; Grandad and I managed to break through the fissure on the scale and hollowed it out to create a sound hole big enough to give resonance, but small enough to keep the legendary toughness of dinosaur scale.”
To prove this, Soltra reached over and rapped his knuckles twice against KG’s guitar - the resulting knocking noise sounded satisfyingly like he was knocking on solid stone.
“And that bar of silver below the fretboard there?” Soltra continued, pointing to the shiny block of metal under the strings. “I gave that a little jolt of magical electricity, and now it resonates with your strings to make them louder!”
KG simply hit the lowest string of his guitar with his thumb, the same nonplussed look crossing his face again.
“Listen - it makes amazing sounds and I know how to play it, so that’s enough for me!”
-----------------------
When the Great Oaken Forest disappeared from view behind them, the going started to get a little rocky, as the dirt paths gave way to rougher trails that steadily rose upwards among rugged hills.
Nonetheless, the two continued on, making small conversation to pass the time as they went – KG even brought his guitar to hand and sang a pleasant little ditty about being on the road again with a friend.
“Getting a bit steep, eh?” Soltra remarked as they continued to climb the stone-studded paths, starting to use his great staff as a walking stick.
“I hope that Antoine guy’s directions were right,” KG replied, replacing his guitar on his back. “I’d hate to think we’re wasting our time, here.”
“Oh, I don’t think we are,” the mage responded. “In fact, I think we should be coming to the top, here, if I’m not mistaken…”
Indeed, the path started to flatten out as the pair of them gradually began to crest the hill, and, when they finally reached the crown of it, they were greeted by an utterly fabulous vista.
Below them, at the bottom of the hill, lay the port town of Neriloch.
It was arranged before them in a great semi-circle, a mass of red-roofed buildings all leading down to the harbour in the centre, not unlike the amphitheatre classrooms Soltra had attended at Deerfell.
Closest to them was obviously a residential area - they could clearly see that the red rooves were more spaced out there, with smoking chimneys above and green gardens below.
Further down, these crimson coverings increased in number and density, as if competing for space in the narrow streets.
This congregation of buildings led down towards what was unmistakably the port, which was filled with boats, entering and exiting hither and thither like bees in and out of a hive.
Beyond the town, the open sea was spread to the horizon, its sparkling waves and tides beckoning the pair of them alluringly - the water itself shone and gleamed jewel-like in the distance, daring them to come closer.
“Look at it,” KG breathed. “Can’t believe I’ve never been here before!”
“It’s not bad, is it?” Soltra said impressively. “Hasn't changed much since I was last here.”
There was about twenty seconds of silence, before the python whipped his head back to Soltra, his black hair swinging wildly.
"Wait, haud on... you've been here before??" he said, but Soltra just shrugged.
"Eh, came here occasionally when I was at Deerfell... never had to walk here, though..."
KG shook his head. “Right, let’s get down there and you can show me around, then!”
And with that, the mage and the bard descended the hill towards the outskirts of the town of Neriloch.
Soltra proceeded alongside KG towards the town, but was suddenly halted by the python’s hand grasping the arm of his coat.
“Bloody hell, look at this!”
Turning, the magician saw his friend’s back bent and his head craned, staring straight down at the cobblestone path they were both on.
Soltra had to laugh as KG tapped his boot off of the stones, evidently admiring the noise it made.
“Tikal’s sake, have you never seen a stone path before?”
“Not like this!” The python mused. “It’s all dirt tracks around Oakenglen - this is like walking on Davan the baker’s old pastries!”
Laughing again, Soltra tugged on the snake’s arm to pull him down the road.
Even in the suburbs of Neriloch, there was a lot for KG to take in.
Around him, every property had a garden surrounded by a white stone wall – Oakenglen gardens were few and far between, and barely anybody had their own fence, let alone white stone walls!
People made their way through the streets while children played and prattled about with toys in the walled gardens.
Suddenly, from out of a side street just in front of them raced a little orange racoon girl with her hair in twin pigtails.
“Oi’m gunna be a pirate!” she declared, waving a little wooden sword around in front of her as she ran across the main road and into the adjoining street across from her. “’Marine the Merciless’, that’s what they’ll call me! C’mon, Cream!”
“Marine, waaaaiiiit!”
As ‘Marine the Merciless’ disappeared from view, another little girl emerged from the first side street, almost colliding with KG’s legs as she ran after her friend.
“Sorry, mister!” cried the pale yellow rabbit girl, gathering up her little orange dress as she followed the raccoon girl down the side street.
KG and Soltra watched the little rabbit run off, then shrugged at each other as they resumed their walk.
As the cobbled street took them down closer to the port, KG noticed that the buildings were becoming a little less residential and a little more workmanlike.
The stone walls and gardens disappeared, replaced with dark wooden structures which seemed to mainly be filled with trades and workers; Shipbuilding workshops, tanneries, smokeries, apothecaries…
KG and Soltra had to weave their way around carts full of goods parked in the street amid shops and stores, the wares of which were displayed under colourful awnings.
Gradually, the cobbled road evened out as they got closer and closer to the docks, and, when they reached the bottom of the main street, their view was suddenly thrown wide open as the buildings disappeared from view.
The harbour was spread out in front of them from left to right in a great concave curve; on the left of the mage and bard, right at the point of the curve of the harbour, they could see the harbourmaster’s office, as designated by its brown wooden sign; on the right side, they couldn’t fail to see Neriloch’s lighthouse, a white stone tower that stood over the harbour, its height above the sea level equalling that of the town’s residential area.
Between these two points, tens of boats, of all shapes, sizes and colours, lay bobbing in the water. The waterfront was busy with activity, as men and carts laden with goods trundled about the place from ship to shore and back again.
“Right, let’s get to it!” Soltra said, rubbing his hands together.
-----------------------
The skipper of ‘The Cullin Sound’ was waiting for repairs on his boat…
Neither Soltra nor KG had even a third of the gold to pay for a trip on the ‘Skipper’s Delight’...
The steward of the ‘Audacity’ took one look at the two of them, turned up his nose and walked back up the gangplank…
The captain of the ‘Mare’s Tail’ wasn’t willing to transport a mage on his ship, spitting on the ground at Soltra’s feet and bitterly making mention of what he referred to as ‘the fireball incident’...
-----------------------
So it went on: the python and the snow leopard were turned away, for one reason or another, from every ship in the harbour of Neriloch.
After all of those rejections, it was starting to look hopeless.
They were all but at the end of the docks now, near to where the huge lighthouse tower sat, and they had all but run out of boats to inspect and captains to petition.
But, up ahead, there seemed to be an argument unfolding by the side of a small ship between a short figure in a green coat and a shorter person in a brown coat.
“Oh bugger,” Soltra whispered down to KG. “That’s Harald Bridgeport, the harbourmaster!”
As KG and Soltra approached, snippets of heated altercation made their way through the air to them over the ubiquitous lapping of water:
“...an absolute bloody disgrace of a boat, cluttering up my harbour like it is!”
“I’m not moving it! I can’t move it! Just because you’re a mole doesn’t mean your eyesight is that bad, does it?”
“Cheeky little bastard! I ought to kick you right in those oversized balls!”
“As if you could reach them!”
KG and Soltra looked at each other as they neared the two quarrellers, slowing their pace a little so that they could eavesdrop without looking like they were eavesdropping.
Harald Bridgeport was indeed a mole – with his hairless head, small stature and thick brown coat, he gave the impression of an overgrown, fat baby wrapped in too much swaddling cloth.
The taller man, decked in his green coat and red undershirt, stood there defiantly with his arms crossed, scowling down at the mole man.
This man was a brownish ferret, with a pink nose, pointed ears and an utterly gravity-defying hairstyle - the golden hair ran down his back in a loose ponytail, while rising to an admirably pointed coif above his forehead!
“Now, I want this tub of shit gone from my harbour by the morning, or I’ll move it for you – out into the ocean, where it’ll be sunk!”
Without waiting for the ferret to answer, Harald Bridgeport turned and stomped back up the harbour, muttering under his brushy brown moustache - he pushed past KG and Soltra, not seeming to recognise the latter.
Nonetheless, the mage and the bard approached the ferret, who had turned back to survey his vessel with his hands on his hips.
It was Soltra who spoke up first:
“Wow, that Harald's still a grumpy git, eh? Took 6 hours to process the cargo of one ship, last time I was here!”
The ferret turned around, allowing KG and Soltra to see his face up close for the first time.
Rather than brown, the areas around the ferret’s eyes and muzzle were a pale cream colour, highlighting his green eyes to a remarkable degree as he sized up the snow leopard and python before him.
“Meh, he’s always been a grumpy git,” he said. “Name’s Snap - Snap of the Sixteen Seas, to be precise!”
Snap puffed out his chest impressively, as though expecting Soltra to recognise him.
“Um, right?” The snow leopard said, raising an eyebrow while the ferret deflated slightly with disappointment. “I’d have pegged you more as ‘Snap the Melon-Smuggler’, with your trousers as packed as they are!”
Using his staff, Soltra gestured between Snap’s legs, where there were indeed a pair of melon-sized spheres jutting out underneath the light brown material!
The ferret's pink triangle of a nose wrinkled slightly as he laughed in amusement at this assessment.
“That’s rich coming from you, Mr. Big Staff!” he responded jokingly. “Anyway - how can I help you, gents?”
“I’m Soltra, and this is KG,” the snow leopard bowed his head, motioning towards the python who waved. “And, well - we need to get to the Kingdom of Acorn pretty sharpish.”
“O-ho, the Kingdom of Acorn you say?” Snap intoned with interest, stroking his little white nib of a goatee. “I’m familiar with it!”
“Excellent!” Soltra smiled. “Well, we need to get there in the next day or so, and we were wondering if you’d be so kind as to transport us there?”
“Hmm, I think that can be arranged,” The ferret said. “Been a while since I had company on my ship…”
He turned and walked a little further down the dock, with KG and Soltra quickly following behind.
“This is my ship - the ‘Lucky Rascal’!” Snap said, proudly gesturing towards his vessel.
The Lucky Rascal was a fairly rough sight - for a start, it certainly wasn’t as big as anything that the mage and bard had seen in the harbour that day.
The whole thing, from the keel to the crow’s nest, appeared to be made entirely of floorboards - of a quality not much better than actual flotsam - and cluttered upon its rugged deck lay a whole mess of seafaring detritus that should normally be below deck:
Stray spools of rope lay everywhere, framing sextants, wooden boxes, some broken arrows and the odd cannonball, despite there being no sign of cannon anywhere.
“I mean, she’s not the most glamorous method of travel,” Snap admitted as KG looked the boat over. “But she’s never done me wrong since I got her!”
There were a few moments of silence between the three of them, before:
“You’ve got no sail.” KG noted, pointing up at the Lucky Rascal’s mast, where there was a notable, square-shaped gap in the rigging. “Even a landlubber like me knows that you kind of need that to move a ship.”
“Ah, right, that. Ahem, funny story about that, you see…” Snap coughed with embarrassment. “A couple of nights ago, I may have had a drink or two, and a local lady may have convinced me to give it over to her to turn into a tablecloth…”
“Oh Gaia, really?!” KG said under his breath, sighing and rubbing the green scales on the bridge of his snout. “I can’t believe our quest ends like this…”
“Quest?” The ferret’s triangular ears flicked and turned towards the snake.
“Yeah, that’s what we need to get over to the Kingdom of Acorn for,” Soltra nodded.
Snap stroked his little goatee again, clearly lost in thought as he mulled the situation over.
After a few seconds, he spoke up again:
“Alright, Magic Man and Music Man, here’s the deal – you help me to get my sail back, and I’ll take you both to the Kingdom of Acorn. How does that sound?”
KG and Soltra looked at each other.
They had been summarily dismissed by every boat captain in the harbour; they didn’t know when said boats would leave and be replaced by other boats; finding a willing captain had the potential to be a never-ending game of chance…
KG nodded at Soltra.
Soltra nodded at KG.
“That sounds like magic, ‘Snap of the Sixteen Seas’!” Soltra smiled, extending a hand - along with KG - towards the ferret.
The grin on Snap’s face could have lit up the port even better than the lighthouse behind him as he gripped their hands.
“Right, then! Magic Man, you stay and keep the boat safe - Music Man, come with me…”
-----------------------
“So, where do we find this ‘local lady’ of yours, then?” KG asked, adjusting the leather strap of his guitar and following Snap away down the dock.
“No idea!” Snap shrugged in response.
“What?” KG sighed. “So we’ve got to go and find this lady?”
“I don’t know where she lives, but I do know where we can find out…”
The ferret’s green coat billowed behind him and his sword bounced in its sheath as he led the python up through the cobbled streets of Neriloch, until he paused outside the Keel & Goose pub.
“Alright, this is where I met her,” Snap said, nonchalantly leaning up against a wooden barrel that sat to the side of the Keel & Goose’s front door. “At this time of day, it should be fairly quiet for you, so you won’t be bothered while you ask around.”
“Right, right, I’ll get in there and - wait,” KG headed for the door before stopping to look at the ferret as he hopped up to sit on the barrel. “Are you no’ coming in?”
“Who, me? Absolutely not!” Snap scoffed. “With the tab I built up in there last night, they’d put me on the dishes for the next two years!”
KG frowned at the prospect of going into this unknown tavern by himself, let alone to ask around for the whereabouts of an unknown woman who was clearly a thief of some kind.
“Listen: don't eat yourself… you’ll be alright, mate,” Snap said, reaching out and placing a brown hand onto the snake’s shoulder. “All you need to do is get in there and ask the owner for ‘Vanilla’ - you’ll be in and out in a minute!”
Reflexively adjusting the leather strap binding his guitar around him, KG smoothed out his coat and ran a hand through his long hair.
“Right… here goes, then!” he said, before entering the Keel & Goose.
His instant first impression was how much bigger and cleaner the tavern was compared to the Olde Lantern in Oakenglen: more windows gave the place better natural light, the wooden floor and tables were of better quality (with far less opportunity for splinters) and there was even a wooden chandelier suspended from the ceiling!
Of course, being that it was only the early afternoon, the Keel & Goose was rather sparsely populated; a couple of patrons were secreted at tables in the corners, but KG paid them no mind as he headed towards the bar in search of answers.
“Haven’t seen you before…” said the barman, a leathery-looking hog with wisps of white hair protruding from within his ears. “You musta just blown in ‘ere this mornin’, eh boy?”
“Aye, just got in the day,” KG replied, leaning a forearm on the bar.
“Well, you look old enough to drink,” the bartender cheekily smirked. “What’ll it be, then?”
The python ignored this remark, leaning forward conspiratorially. “I’m actually looking for somebody…”
“O-ho? And who’s that, then?”
KG looked around him to make sure that no-one was listening in, before returning to the barman.
“I believe her name’s ‘Vanilla’?”
“BWA-HA-HA-HA!” The old hog’s sudden guffaw actually made KG recoil with fright. “Oh bleedin’ ‘eck, that’s the earliest anybody’s ever asked for ‘er!”
Wiping a tear from his eye, the boar barman continued before KG could even ask him to keep it down:
“I-I suppose you’ll be serenadin’ ‘er with that fancy-lookin’ guitar of yours then, eh?” he said, miming plucking an invisible guitar.
“Look, I just want tae talk tae her…” KG replied in exasperation, but this only seemed to make it worse.
“Oh sure, ‘talk to her’!” Now it was one of the patrons at the tables chipping in loudly. “I’ve ‘talked’ to Vanilla a couple times meself, but it’s hard to hear over all the screaming!”
The patron and the barman erupted into more peals of laughter while KG wiped a hand down his face in frustration.
“Look,” he began. “Please just tell me where I can-”
“Covered in flowers, up at the top of the town!” the boarman said. “It’s right close to the town entrance, on the left as you’re goin’ up.”
“Thank you…” KG sighed, turning on his heel and heading towards the door of the Keel & Goose, just as the unknown tavern patron called out to him:
“Remember to pull out!”
-----------------------
“Is this Vanilla some kind of, like… ‘lady of the night’ or something?”
“Well, I believe she’s got a bit of a ‘reputation’ in Neriloch,” Snap chuckled in response as the two of them ascended the steep main road.
The pair tramped up the cobbled main street of Neriloch, winding their way through carts and citizens on their way up towards the supposed abode of Vanilla.
Gradually, the brown hues of the port gave way to the white stone and red roofs of the residential area - gone were the dirty roads and pathways, replaced with the pleasant gardens and the stone garden walls that surrounded them.
Snap and KG looked down the various side-streets of Neriloch’s suburbs, on the lookout for the tell-tale flowers that denote their destination.
“You never said how you’d get yer sail back,” KG pointed out.
“That’s where you come in,” Snap replied. “You’ll need to distract her - play her a song or something - while I jump over her garden wall and sneak in the back way…”
KG said nothing, not entirely sure about playing a part in such deception, until…
“There!” Snap cried, pointing down the next street that they were about to come to.
The white facade of the house in question was utterly lost behind a covering of roses - white ones and pink ones intermingled with spectacular red ones amidst the viridian vines, climbing the walls and framing the door and the windows.
“Aye, I think that’s it,” KG said.
“So, this is where she lives,” Snap mused, taking in the house. “This is where I could have been waking up this morning…”
There was about 20 seconds of silence, before KG spoke up:
“Right, so I just knock on the door; then what?”
“As soon as she comes to the door, I’ll be over the garden wall to get my sail; then you can make up some excuse to leave and we’ll be off without her being any the wiser!”
“You really are a pirate, eh?” KG sighed, as Snap made his way around the perimeter of Vanilla’s house, hugging the white garden wall as he went.
“Best on the sixteen seas!” Snap grinned back at the python, who turned to the rose-wreathed door and prepared himself for his second door-based journey into the unknown.
KG raised his hand to the wooden door and knocked three times.
There was silence, until the door creaked open…
“Hello, young man,” came a woman’s voice, from far away. “Can I help you?”
The fact that he was being addressed took several long seconds to sink into the python’s brain, because he was too busy staring at the enormous pair of tits that had just appeared at the door!
Perfectly situated at the python’s eye level and staring him straight in the face, the only thing separating those massive hugbumpers from the outside world was a dress of pastel orange and pink, with fancy white flowers embroidered all over them.
Then, rising up from beneath those massive boulders, a hand touched KG’s chin with its forefinger, gently raising the snake’s snout up towards the face of Vanilla the Rabbit.
“I see I’ve caught your attention…” Vanilla’s voice, honeyed and sweet, lilted towards the python as he took in her features.
Her eyes were of the purest amber, shining and lusty as she looked him up and down - those eyes were lidded by lids of an apricot orange that matched the area around her eyes.
The laughter lines at the corner of her eyes betrayed her age, and they deepened at her smile upon observing the guitar strapped to KG’s back.
“Well well, I see that there’s a new bard in town…” she purred, still tilting KG’s face up towards hers. “I wonder if you’ll grace my ears with some wonderful song this afternoon?”
“I, er, well…” KG stammered, attempting to reassemble his brain. “I just… I just came over to…”
“MUUUuuuuuuUUUM!”
From inside Vanilla’s house came the voice of a young girl, getting louder as it approached Vanilla and KG at the door.
Vanilla closed her eyes, exhaling with a touch of exasperation as she straightened up, turning from the bard to look back inside the house.
Even with the motherly rabbit’s tits in the way, KG beheld a little, pale yellow rabbit girl of about six years of age running through the hallway towards them, and felt a thrill of recognition as their eyes met.
“Oh, um… hello, mister!” She said, holding onto her orange dress and giving a little curtsy.
“What is it, Cream dearest?” Vanilla said, pursing her lips slightly at the intrusion.
“There’s a strange man stealing our new tablecloth from the washing line!” Cream squeaked, pointing back into the house behind her.
An uncomfortable silence permeated the air between them: KG gulped as silently as he could, but he needn’t have worried, since Vanilla’s sharp inhale gave him plenty of cover.
“Would you excuse me for a moment?” She said, turning to KG with a painted-on smile that vanished the second she turned to her daughter. “Show me, now.”
Mother and daughter disappeared together into the rose-covered house, leaving KG outside to ponder his next move.
He didn’t have long to think before Snap reappeared around the side of the house.
The ferret had retrieved his sail, which he had rolled into a big, white ball and was currently clutching to his chest.
“Come on, KG!” He shouted. “Let’s get out of here, quick!”
The python didn’t need telling twice, breaking into a run alongside his new friend towards Neriloch’s main street.
They were just in time to miss Vanilla reappearing at the front door, eyes narrowing in fury at the thief and his accomplice as they dashed away.
They did not, however, miss the blood-curdling scream that she emitted, which seemed to echo around the port town of Neriloch:
“SOMEBODY HELP ME! I’VE BEEN ROBBED!”
-----------------------
“Come on.”
Soltra waved his hand.
As if being puppeteered by invisible hands, the end of the thick, knotted rope rose up a couple of feet into the air… before flopping back down to the wooden deck.
“Come on.”
Another wave caused the rope to rise up again, this time a few more feet… before slapping down onto the deck again like a dead fish.
“So you’ll tie yourself in knots, but you won’t even stand up, for Tikal’s sake?”
The snow leopard sighed, his breath causing the blue shard in his black hair to dance about his feline features.
Once again, he consulted the pages of ‘Magic Made Manifest Volume 2’, which lay open on his lap.
He could swear that he was perfectly following the instructions depicted on the yellowed pages before him, but despite his best efforts, Soltra could not get the rope to do much at all.
The mage sighed again, closing his book, stowing it back into his leather satchel and standing up off of the quarter deck steps he’d been sitting on.
The Lucky Rascal bobbed lightly under Soltra’s feet as he moved to the bow, finding a spot on the wooden breasthook to rest upon an elbow and gaze out over the lapping waters.
As he had said to KG a couple of hours ago, the snow leopard had been through the port of Neriloch a few times in the past - coming in to see his grandfather, and exiting to go back to Deerfell to continue his magical education.
This time, however, he would be setting sail for an unknown shore with new compatriots, on a momentous quest…
Speaking of which, Soltra wondered how Snap and KG were getting on with their own quest to reacquire the Lucky Rascal’s sail.
It was at this precise moment that noises began to make their way into Soltra’s round ears - noises that travelled above the sloshing of the water, and even above the clamour of the ships docked in the harbour.
It sounded like… distant shouting…
Soltra turned, walking back up the wooden steps to the quarter deck of the Lucky Rascal to get a view of the great, curved docks in an attempt to source the disturbance.
The voices grew gradually louder - this was clearly more than just the average shouts of dock workers, but instead an inharmonious tangle of angry roaring and caterwauling .
Though he was out on the docks, Soltra couldn’t fail to notice the sudden arrival of Snap and KG into his field of view - bursting out of Neriloch’s main street, they turned towards the direction of the Lucky Rascal and continued their desperate sprint down the harbour, with Snap holding what must have been his lost sail and KG right behind him.
Unfortunately, the reason for their breakneck running speed - and the source of the shouting - followed right behind them:
A number of large, burly men rounded the same corner, charging heavily down the dock in pursuit of the snake and the ferret.
“Get back ‘ere!”
“Ya little bastard thieves!”
“Give V’nilla ‘er sheet back!”
Snap was clearly not the first man in Neiloch to have been charmed by Vanilla, it seemed, as these thick lads pretty much ran through the dock-workers and waterside flotsam that Snap and KG had to jump and dodge around.
Soltra snatched up his staff, preparing himself to leap into action as Snap and KG began running down the pier towards him.
“Quick, Soltra, get ready!” Snap shouted.
A second later, both he and KG were airborne, leaping from the pier and landing heavily on the wooden deck of the Lucky Rascal!
“Right, here we go,” KG said, taking the sail from Snap and presenting the snow leopard with the edge that was lined with holes. “Get this up there, quick as ye can!”
The angry men that had been following Snap and KG, intent on reclaiming the sail, were now coming alongside the boat, but the ferret wasn’t having any of it.
As soon as KG had taken the sheet from him, he turned to face the pier, withdrew his curved sword from its sheath and took aim at the mooring rope connecting his ship to the mainland.
The steel blade sliced through the rope like it was made of fog, making sparks as it struck the stone pier, but by that time, Snap had already planted a brown boot onto the pier and shoved with all his might.
The Lucky Rascal lurched away from the dock, out of reach of the burly blokes, who continued to throw minced oaths at them.
Meanwhile, Soltra pointed his open palm at the disobedient rope that had been vexing him minutes before.
“Come on, you bastard…”
As the Lucky Rascal swayed in the water, slowly floating away from Neriloch, the mage concentrated hard and made the necessary movements with his hand.
At once, the rope sprung to attention, the first couple of feet of it standing up in the air, before it got to work.
Guided by Soltra’s undulating arm movements, the rope darted in and out of the holes in the sail and, before KG’s very eyes, began to drag the whole sheet up the mast!
While Snap swung his sword in the direction of their thick pursuers to prevent them from jumping aboard, the sail-laden rope heaved itself into place amongst the rigging.
“Fantastic, Magic Man!” Snap called, seeing his beloved craft whole again. “Now, give us some wind and we’ll be out of here!”
Moving up to the quarter deck, Soltra raised his wooden staff – as he waved it, the gem fastened into the top of it began to glow with aquamarine light, seemingly in anticipation of the magic that was to be asked of it.
“OK, hold on!”
WHOOMF!!
A great gust of wind slammed into the newly reattached sail, pulling it taut against the rigging holding it in and causing the Lucky Rascal to violently jerk forwards.
KG had to grab onto the mast to stop himself from sliding down the deck, Snap had to use his arms to stop himself from falling onto one of the quarter deck staircases and Soltra nearly toppled over backwards.
The detritus present on the deck of the Lucky Rascal slid backwards as the wooden craft shot forwards, clattering against the quarter deck stairs and the double hatch doors that led to the hull in a great heap.
The angry men were left to impotently wave their fists on the pier as the wooden ship sailed out of Neriloch’s waters, passing by the enormous lighthouse and out into the ocean.
Snap, KG and Soltra regained their footing, their hair blowing and tossing about in the wind as they stood on the deck.
“Well!” Snap said, hands on his hips as the noise of the Neriloch docks began to fade behind them. “Should be plain sailing for us now, eh lads?”
KG and Soltra groaned, silently hoping that such appalling puns would be a rarity in their quest.
