Chapter Two Hundred and Eighty-Four - The Honourable Judge Bunch, Presiding

We needed a quiet place to chat, so we looked around for one. I made sure to strongly suggest to the others (with finger-waggled threats) not to snipe at each other until we found a place where we could talk.

As it turned out, the first place we found was a bar not too far from the parade grounds. It wasn’t too busy, probably owing to it being fairly early in the day still, and while the interior wasn’t well-lit, it was rather cosy, with a hearth in the corner providing some warmth and a sylph musician plucking away at a lute in a different corner.

The barmaid gave us a table to ourselves in the far corner, away from most of the other patrons who gave us strange looks. We definitely stood out, but as long as no one was snooping in, it was fine.

Amaryllis and Nathan ordered a bunch of drinks so that we wouldn’t be freeloading, and then we all sat or stood around the table.

“Okay,” I said. I put on my--figurative--Judge Broccoli wig, then glanced at everyone around the table. “Who wants to go first?” I asked.

“How about Rowan goes first?” Amaryllis asked. “He’s the one that nearly got us all arrested.”

“Amaryllis, try to keep the accusations to a minimum. We haven’t heard from Rowan himself about why he, ah, walked off to explore that sylph base.”

“I was looking for a washroom,” Rowan said.

We all stared.

“Mister Rowan,” I said patiently. “That’s, uh, not true, I don’t think, and we all know it.”

Rowan crossed his arms. “You’re not my superiors. I don’t have to endure this whole... charade. For all I know you’ll just spill to the sylph.”

“If they wanted to do that, they could have left you with the sylph guards back there,” Nathan pointed out. “But they didn’t. Broccoli here wanted to save you despite the risk to herself.”

“Yeah, we might have gotten arrested again,” I said.

“What?” Ellie asked.

“Anyway,” I said. “You can tell us, Rowan, I’m sure you had good reasons. It takes a lot of bravery to sneak into a place like that. I’m sure you didn’t do it just for fun.”

Rowan glared at me, then at Nathan, and finally at the wood grain of the table. If time spent glaring was any measure of a person’s anger, then he really loathed the table. “Fine,” he said.

The cervid uncrossed his arms and placed them, balled into fists, on the surface. We had to wait just a little before he really seemed ready to speak up.

“The sylph are gearing up for war,” he said. “They’ve always been very militaristic, but this is different. It started maybe a year ago. They have spies too, you know, and those started to poke around a lot in Manamere and elsewhere. They were looking for something. I think they were checking to see the nation’s readiness.”

“Go on,” Amaryllis said.

“Well, that’s all there is to it,” he said. “They’re going to go to war, and this time it’ll be big. Sylphfree, the Nesting Mountains, the Republic. Maybe the grenoil and those humans too. They’re a ways off, but with airships it shouldn’t be hard to drop a whole army on the Republic’s lap.”

“Wait, you think they’re all going to go to war with us?” Ellie asked.

“Sylphfree and the Nesting Mountains becoming allies is pretty far-fetched,” Amaryllis said.

“It’s not that implausible,” Rowan argued. “Look, the grenoil want the bit of the Trenten Flats next to their home. The harpies want all that land that we took around the base of their mountains. The sylph probably want the capital itself.”

“All that from discovering a few spies?” Amaryllis asked.

Rowan looked up to her. “And discovering what they were spying on. That’s not all. Dungeons all across the Trenten Flats have become unusable. The government is locking them up and refusing anyone entry.”

“Evil roots,” I said.

Rowan snapped his attention onto me. “What did you say?”

“Evil roots. They’re these big root things that grab onto a dungeon’s core and corrupt it.”

“They’re a sylph weapon,” Rowan pushed.

“Uh. No? We’ve seen them everywhere. In Mattergrove, in Deepmarsh, even on the other side of the Grey Wall. That’s where the infection was worst, actually. We know that there’s been an outbreak here too. The sylph lost a few dungeons.”

Amaryllis and Awen both nodded to confirm what I said.

“It’s not a sylph weapon, I don’t think. If it is, they’re losing dungeons to it too. Or at least, Rainnewt destroyed some of their dungeons because they were infected,” I said.

Rowan was frowning, I wasn’t sure if he believed us or not, but he was listening.

“Who?” Ellie asked.

I pouted. “Rainnewt. Or Drizz L. Izard. Or... maybe other reptile nicknames. He knows a lot of languages, and has been attacking and destroying dungeons here and elsewhere too. He was part of the Exploration Guild in Goldenalden for a bit, then he moved to Deepmarsh to make trouble there.”

“Did you hear anything about a cervid diplomat getting into trouble in Deepmarsh?” Amaryllis asked.

“There was one that was killed there,” Ellie said. “Everyone was talking about it.”

“That’s Rainnewt,” Amaryllis said. “He’s the one that bombed that gala, with the sylph representatives in Fort Sylphrot, too.”

Nathan raised a hand, stalling us. “You’re saying that this one person has been to three countries and did all of that?”

“Yeah. He’s scary,” I said. “I met him once, and fought him once. He can shapeshift.”

“It’s very likely that he’s not working alone,” Amaryllis said. “But Broccoli’s essentially correct. He’s working to start a war.”

“Why?” Nathan asked.

Amaryllis and Awen and I looked at each other.

Nathan leaned forwards. “If you know, and you expect us to trust you, then tell us.”

“Well,” I said. “Um.”

“It’s your secret to tell,” Awen said.

I nodded. It was. “That’s true. Rainnewt is probably a riftwalker.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Ellie said.

“If he is a riftwalker,” I continued. “Then he probably has a quest from the World to destroy all the Evil Roots. The World really, really doesn’t like them. I think... we think that Rainnewt’s solution to that is to get all the nations to fight each other. That’ll mean a lot of dungeons being destroyed all over, which might stop the Evil Roots. They don’t just make a dungeon more dangerous, they corrupt the mana around them too, and they can spread. So every nation will have to start working to stop them.”

“And how would you know any of that?” Nathan asked. His eyes were narrowed, as if he were holding back a suspicion.

“Well, I’m a riftwalker too, and that’s what the World asked me to do. The dungeon fixing and Evil Root pruning, not the whole... war thing. I’m very anti-war.”

“You want us to believe that you’re a riftwalker?” Ellie said. She sniffed. “You can’t be.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“Well, for one, Riftwalkers are special,” she said.

Awen and Amaryllis both started to giggle. I felt my ears wilting. “I’m special,” I mumbled.

“Miss Broccoli,” Nathan said. Everyone turned to him. “How long have you been on Dirt?”

“Uh, about two months, I think? Maybe a bit less than that. I really should have gotten something to count the days,” I said.

Nathan nodded and turned to the others. “Well, she speaks Lavaleigh Pastiche as if she was born to it.”

“There are skills that could allow her to do that,” Ellie said. “And for someone to arrive on Dirt and be here, with her own ship and... two people of some import in the space of a month and a bit is entirely too silly.”

“Wouldn’t that be good evidence in favour that she’s a riftwalker then?” Amaryllis asked. “The stories about them frequently feature their far-fetched exploits. The World chooses them for a reason, after all.”

“I’m not lying,” I added.

Rowan sighed. “It doesn’t matter,” he said, cutting past the argument. “If what you’re saying is true. And I’m not saying that I believe you, then Sylphfree isn’t planning to go to war?”

“Oh, they probably are,” Amaryllis said. “But their preparations are based on Rainnewt's machinations and possibly the dungeon infections - they're drawing the same conclusions you did; except they probably think it's all a plot by you to invade. They’re being played for fools just as hard as your precious Republic is.”

“And you elected not to tell them?” Nathan asked.

“That’s what we’re in this miserable country for. To show them the truth, and convince them not to start a war on the global stage,” Amaryllis said. “Do you have any idea how many would die in a war between all of these countries? Not just sylph, but harpy and cervid.”

“The Republic would win,” Ellie said with utmost confidence.

“The Republic is about a decade behind in weapons and airship manufacturing, and you’re ill-suited to fighting in mountains,” Amaryllis said.

Nathan cleared his throat very pointedly. “We are not going to do a nationalistic girth measuring contest now,” he said.

“Yeah,” I agreed. I didn’t know what a nation’s girth was, but that didn’t matter, we were talking about more important things. “I don’t think any of us want a war. But we’ve moved past our original subject. Uh, Rowan, what you did wasn’t very nice, and it might have put your friends in danger. I think saying sorry would be an easy solution to everything. And if you really want information to give to your superiors or whatever, then you have all this stuff about Rainnewt.”

Rowan sniffed. “I’m not going to--” Nathan’s chest shifted, as if he had just moved one of his legs very quickly under the table, and Rowan winced. “Ah... I mean, yes, I’m very sorry. But that information, about Rainnewt or whomever, it’s not going to be enough, if they even believe it.”

“They can look into it too,” I said. “It’s the truth, it has to be easier to verify than... the not-truth.”

“You’re an optimist,” Ellie said.

“The biggest,” I agreed.

Amaryllis waved the discussion off. “We’re not going to go anywhere with this. We don’t have concrete proof to provide to you, and you have a bias towards whatever you were taught about how the World works.”

“We all have biases,” I said before I sighed. The conversation was over, more or less. There was no point in dragging it out. “So now what? We just continue being tourists for the rest of the day?”

“While the news is rather distressing,” Nathan said. “I don’t see the harm in doing just that. People might get suspicious if we don’t do what we set out to do. And besides, I do want to see the city for myself, not just this little part of it either.”

“Alright then,” I said as I stood up. “Let’s go out there and have as much fun as we can while we still can. And then... and then I guess we’ll see what we can do. The whole reason we’re going to the summit is to try and convince everyone not to start this whole war thing.”

“A noble cause,” Nathan agreed.

We got up just as the barmaid returned with all of our drinks and such. Amaryllis sheepishly paid for them all, then told the barmaid to hand them out to other customers. It was rather awkward.

“So, where to next?” I asked as we stepped out onto the street.

“I do still want to visit the shopping district,” Ellie said.

“The docks,” Rowan replied.

I nodded. “Great! To the shopping district and the docks! Amaryllis, which is closer?”

“How would I know?” Amaryllis asked. “I never made a point of learning where the best shops are in Goldenalden, of all places.”

“Oh, don’t be a wet duck,” I said.

Amaryllis squawked, much like a duck would.

***