Chương 69: Maelle's First Day at the Bay

Maelle woke up to the sound of arguing. She was in Dory's room. The evening sun leaked through the shuttered window. Last night felt like a dream. Did the humans really have to go through that every single day? She recognized Dory's voice, and opened the door to find the knight arguing in the hallway with a young man. He looked maybe a year or two younger than Amberlin. While she jogged her memory for his name, he stormed off.

"Come back here, Remore!" Dory yelled, looking ready to chase after him until she saw Maelle in the doorway.

"Oh! Did we wake you up? I'm so sorry."

"What happened with your brother?" she asked, the first pieces slowly reconnecting in her mind.

"Oh, he's being stubborn." Dory looked like she wanted to say more but instead tilted her head toward the kitchen.

"We didn't have time for dinner last night, did we? You must be famished. How about I make you something to eat?" Dory fried them up some eggs and beans, and pulled soup from a giant pot on the side of the stove. Maelle felt like she should be over there helping. But she'd never had to cook back at the palace, and Marina handled it all when they were on the run. Since we joined the party, any meal more complicated than holding a stick over an open fire was handled by Havlo.

Instead she busied herself rearranging the items on the table to make room for when they finally sat down to eat.

"Your family sure loves their cakes," she remarked after noticing that everything had a savory theme.

"I don't know why, but Mom says people have been stopping by and dropping them off all day," Dory replied.

"She's worried we'll get into trouble because there's supposed to be a ration."

"Why would you get in trouble? You aren't the ones who went out and bought all this."

"That's what I told her. Gifts are gifts, right?" Dory glanced back over her shoulder and frowned when she saw the cake pyramid Maelle had made.

"There's just so much. I don't know how we're going to eat all this before it goes stale. We'll have to find a way to offload it on the neighbors."

"At least Amberlin will be happy," she said, recalling her party leader's complains about the bakeries in Ardark. Dory turned back to her frying pan.

"I have to admit, I had some doubts about you guys."

"I did try to assure you, didn't I? We aren't all as weak as we seem."

"I got worried when you guys lied to the governor about your tiers." It took her a moment to figure out what the knight meant.

"How did you figure out Havlo is stronger than Tier 3?" As far as she could tell, he'd done everything right to maintain the ruse. Even his mana was suppressed to the appropriate level. Instead of answering the question, Dory continued with her previous line of thought.

"If you guys hadn't been there last night, Remore would have died." Maelle stayed quiet, unsure what she was meant to say. After a moment, Dory spoke again.

"I know this isn't my place, but can I ask you a favor, Maelle? I'm willing to pay any price."

"I'll do what I can," she replied.

"Remore has always been a stubborn brat. He'll keep signing up for garrison duty no matter what I say to him." After a brief pause, Dory spoke again, her voice sounding different.

"Can I ask you keep to him safe?" She didn't know how much she could really help in that regard, but replied, "Of course! Though it might be hard if we're assigned to different sectors..."

"I'll see what I can do about that," Dory replied.

"And if the city falls, will you get him out?"

"Well, uh..." She struggled to find the right words. As much as she wanted to reassure Dory, she also didn't want to lie to her. Her own plan in the event of failure was to fly herself out. But she didn't have the strength to carry another person and stay airborne. Dory's mood seemed to shift, and she began muttering to herself over by the stove. It was hard to make out the words, but they sounded something like, "Should have waited to ask..." Maelle felt sorry for her.

The world was such a dangerous place when you couldn't fly. Humans deserved some credit for persevering this long. When the food was ready and Dory brought it out, Maelle noticed something strange about the knight.

"Your eyes are red. Were you crying?" Dory rubbed her eyes.

"Why would I be crying?" Maelle thought back to her own family. She didn't want Dory to go through the same loss.

"I'll have a talk to Amberlin. She's the one who saved Remore last night, wasn't she? I'm sure if he sticks with her, he'll be fine!"

"You'll really do that for me?"

"Yeah! And don't worry, she's super reliable. Well, sometimes. She saved me once in a forest, you know. I, uh, can't talk about it. But you saw her in action last night. Pow-pow!" This brought a smile to Dory's face.

"It must have been a terrifying foe if even you needed help."

"You don't know the half of it! But the scariest thing I've ever seen was in the hills just outside Ardark..."

There are those who believe that a person's name sets them on the path to their destiny, and then there are those like Master, who believed that with any other name, he would still have been appointed to the top job at the Ygg Latten Bay adventurers guild. In fact he'd become an adventurer precisely to get away from his name. He'd first grown concerned when his childhood friend Cooper decided to become a barrel-maker like his father and his father before him—both naturally also named Cooper.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Then there was the weird kid down the street, who went on to become a blacksmith like his father and his father before him. As you might have guessed, they were the Black family. He'd noticed a similar pattern with the other boys in the neighborhood. Baker, Taylor, Connor, Butcher. The list went on.

In deciding to forge his own destiny, he'd taken inspiration from his friend Saylor, who'd fled the port city to join the circus and subsequently became one of the most respected trapeze artists in the kingdom. So Master had refused to become a mast-maker like his father and instead set out to train in the sword. He became quite good at it too, rising all the way to gold rank, taking on apprentices, and eventually opening a dojo to pass on his skills.

He'd caught wind from the knights, some of whom had been his students, about a remarkable party of adventurers that had come to town. The stories seemed unbelievable, as they often were—knights were unrepenting gossips, after all. But as guildmaster it was his duty to stay on top of the comings and goings of adventurers at the bay. His knock was quickly answered.

"Dory!" he exclaimed.

"They called you back from the forward garrison?" He looked past the young knight to the guest seated in the kitchen. His eyes immediately took in the girl's silver badge. This was definitely odd, as she appeared far too young to be a registered adventurer, let alone one with a promotion. Dory explained her circumstances and invited him in before making the introductions.

"Maelle, have you met the guildmaster? Guildmaster Master, this is Maelle."

"Don't mind the echo," he cheerfully repeated the joke he'd told a thousand times.

"My family name's Master."

"It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance." Maelle stood up and bowed. A cat with a tuxedo pattern came out from the hallway and, without hesitation, leaped up onto Maelle's shoulders. The girl didn't even react, which suggested to him that this was a normal interaction between them. Master's mind immediately turned to a recent letter from his counterpart in Lorelark. It had spoken of a young lady of silver rank with a tuxedo cat. Though nothing in there had prepared him for someone quite so young.

But the hero in question was supposed to be heading to Ardark to take down a kidnapping ring. Ygg Latten Bay was in the complete opposite direction. This was the problem with imprecision. There must be dozens of adventurers in the kingdom who would fit such a loose description as contained in the letter.

"Her party arrived at the bay last night to help with the invasion," Dory said.

"Don't let the rank fool you. They come highly recommended, with a letter from Lord Wanderbilt the Second the Second." Master closed his eyes.

"Remind me again, which one is he?"

"Of Ardark." He turned to Maelle.

"You came from Ardark?"

"Briefly," she replied.

"We only stayed there for two nights." Two nights seemed too short a time to accomplish anything significant, least of all take down a people-trafficking ring with demonic influences. And the dates and travel times simply didn't add up, since the fastest route from Ardark to Ygg Latten Bay would first take them back down through the winding Lorear Hills. They would still be on the road. The hero written about in the letter from the Lorelark guildmaster couldn't be Maelle.

He asked about the other members of her party, but they were also silver and bronze. They chatted a bit about her experiences the first night at the bay, and she offered him a cupcake from her pyramid. When he left, it was with a profound sense of disappointment. With the way the defense was going, it seemed he'd pinned more than a bit of hope on these rumors of a great hero. For them to survive the week, it was going to take a miracle. Something on the level of the return of the Amber Mage himself.

After the guildmaster left, Maelle and Dory returned to their conversation until they heard a yawn in the hallway. It was Havlo. He looked out the window toward the evening sun.

"Is Lady Amberlin not back yet?"

"My dad says she stopped by in the morning to drop Boots off and then went to see the governor," Dory replied.

"When did you get in, Havlo?" Maelle asked.

"This morning." He stared at the cake pyramid.

"Maelle, maybe I should hold onto your ration cards for you."

"These aren't mine!" she cried. Dory stood up.

"You must be starving. Let me fix something up for you, Havlo."

"It's all right," he replied.

"I'm quite handy in the kitchen." Dory reseated herself.

"The eggs are in that cupboard. And there's soup in the big pot." Soon Havlo was sitting down with a plate of eggs. When Maelle and Dory asked about what he found out last night, he remained tight-lipped.

"We can't let it get out what we know or suspect," he explained.

"It could compromise the investigation."

"You make it sound like someone in the city is siding with the undead," Dory said.

"We aren't ruling anything out," he said noncommittally.

"Well, we had a terrible time of it," Maelle said.

"Amberlin ran off again, and Dory almost died, and our sector was almost breached. I don't think we can make it another night without you, Havlo."

"We'll see what Lady Amberlin wants me to do," he replied.

"I'm sure she'll be checking in on us soon." She didn't understand why the decision had to rest with Amberlin. Havlo was smarter and stronger and more responsible. Everything would go so much smoother with him as the party leader. But it was pointless to bring it up. Amberlin was the one topic where Havlo wasn't so smart. At that moment Amberlin burst through the front door. Her eyes were immediately drawn to the cake pyramid.

"Maelle! You know you're meant to conserve your rations, right?"

"These aren't mine!"

"People have been coming by and dropping them off all day," Dory explained.

"We aren't quite sure why." Amberlin scratched her head.

"I did ask a few people to recommend a good cake shop. They told me not to worry about it, so I thought it was an Ardark situation all over again. I mean, you are under rations, after all."

"We can't possibly eat all this," Dory said.

"We'll have to start giving it away." Amberlin nodded amicably.

"Cake is meant to be shared." Remore poked his head in behind Amberlin. He made brief eye contact with Dory and looked away. He didn't seem keen to be back here, but had returned by Amberlin's side. The two of them joined the group at the table. Amberlin pulled a cupcake from the top of the pyramid and started munching away while she filled them in on what she'd been up to. Somehow she'd convinced the governor to take her on as a consultant regarding the peninsula's defense setup.

She'd spent the day touring the city with the governor's staff, giving them instructions on where to construct new walls, how to allocate their forces, what supplies to order. Everyone else was looking at the adventurer in awe, and Havlo was beaming.

"They're lucky someone of your talents showed up when you did, Lady Amberlin."

"We really made it here just in time, didn't we?" Amberlin replied.

"Here, Havlo, try this muffin. It's so good. We've got to find out where they got this." Maelle fidgeted, realizing that no one else was going to bring it up if she didn't.

"Um, Amberlin?"

"Yes, Maelle? I see you eyeing the sultana cake, but it's buried a bit too well at the moment. Whoever stacked this pyramid really made it hard to get to all the good stuff."

"That's okay, we can eat that later. But I want to talk about Havlo's assignment. I think we're going to need his help." She explained her concerns and the struggles they went through last night after Amberlin ran off. Amberlin listened through it all and then sighed.

"I'm sorry, Maelle. I got so caught up in the moment and did something thoughtless again. I can't imagine how stressful it must have been, with the mucks almost making it through. I'm going to make sure you won't have to see something like that again."

"Really?" Amberlin nodded.

"I managed to pull some strings and had you reassigned to an easier sector."

"That doesn't solve the problem," she pointed out.

"And you didn't address the part about Havlo."

"I know he can make a big difference in the defense. But defending only buys us one day at a time. The city only survives if we can stop the mucks once and for all. The longer that takes, the harder it gets. That's why we need the best person on the job. That would be Havlo, don't you think?" Maelle caught Havlo's eye, and he smiled back at her. If anyone could figure it out, it would be him—that much was true. But what good would it do if the city fell tonight? But she also saw Amberlin's point.

This was the only path to victory. Since she didn't have an answer, she didn't say anything more.