Cinnamon Bun - Chapter Five Hundred and Thirty-Three

Chapter Five Hundred and Thirty-Three

I think Caprica really wanted to impress Bastion. More so than usual. She ended up at the front of the group, acting as our guide through a city she’d admitted to never setting foot in, but she had read about it. The only other people in our group who had as much knowledge were Amaryllis and Awen, and they’d also never been to Deepmarsh. 

Amaryllis had read about it as well, and some of her classes touched on it., and Awen had stories from her uncle on top of that. 

“This way,” Caprica said as she guided us towards an entrance atop the large building we’d docked at. The entrance was a stone archway, the doors held open with. I felt my ears being blown onto as we crossed into the building, and I raised my hand up, looking for the source of the wind.

“Huh? Is there a spell here?” I asked.

Amaryllis paused, then looked up and squinted. “Oh. There is. Look at the keystone of the arch, there’s a spell woven into it.” 

I couldn’t quite see what she meant, though there were some markings on the stone she gestured to. “What do they do?” I asked.

“Looks like... a drying spell, and one to pull air in. It’s not nearly strong enough to dry all the air, or pull much in,” Amaryllis said.

“It’s likely to counteract the humidity a little,” Caprica said. 

That... was probably a good idea. I had my Cleaning magic running as a thin aura around me, but even then I could feel the muggy heat of the day clinging to me. The air was warm, and wet, and kind of thick? The slight breeze helped a little, and I supposed that was the whole point. “I guess even grenoils can find it too humid,” I said.

“It’s likely also to prevent moisture from causing issues,” Awen said. “Things rust faster in wet places, and there’s always mould that can grow if you’re not careful. At least, that’s what I’ve heard? It’s kind of dry in Mattergrove.”

Mattergrove was sitting right next to a desert, so that was probably a bit of an exaggeration. 

“Let’s get a move on?” Calamity asked. “This place ain’t any good for my fur.”

“Indeed. My tails will require additional grooming once we’ve left this place,” Desiree agreed. She patted one of her tails, which did look a little puffier than usual already.

“Yes, let’s!” Caprica said. She smiled, glanced at Bastion, who was near the front of the group and standing very still, then she spun on a heel and started ahead. 

“Say, Broccoli,” Amaryllis said as she walked next to me. The inside of the building was a lot of wide corridors with low ceilings so far, with lots of equipment and supplies left in crates along the walls. 

“Yeah?” I asked.

Amaryllis squinted ahead at Caprica, then Bastion. “I’d like to think that I’m rather observant of others, but I’d appreciate your opinion.”

“Always,” I said.

“Caprica has the worst crush on Bastion this side of Dirt, yes?”

“Oh yeah,” I said with a nod. “She has it bad. It’s pretty obvious.”

“And bastion is utterly clueless about it, yes?” Amaryllis asked. “I think you have a better read on the Paladin than I do.”

I hummed and rubbed at my chin. Was he? “I think so, but it might be that he’s choosing to be, ah, professional about it?”

“That would make a fair bit of sense. He’d be putting his career in jeopardy if he... entertained any of the ideas Caprica may have.”

“It’s also a little wrong, she’s technically kind of his boss,” I said.

“Oh yes, it would be quite scandalous in the sylph courts. But Caprica isn’t first princess, she may perhaps be able to marry whomever she pleases as long as the choice isn’t too... controversial, and in that respect a former Paladin would be a respectable choice,” Amaryllis said. “We should be playing chaperon. To keep poor Bastion from being harmed.”

I blinked. “Not to keep Caprica safe?” I asked.

“I know what I said.”

I held off on giggling, even if I wanted to. There was no point in getting the other’s attention. They might ask what had made me laugh, and then I’d have to explain things, or make something up, and I was no good at that.

The corridor we were in opened up into a large room. It was multi-levelled, with balconies running along the edges and a half-dozen floor drop in the centre. I leaned over the edge and looked down towards the bottom where a small garden-park sat. The ceiling had several tubes cut into it, with mirrors on the inside that captured the sun’s light and cast long beams of light down through the room, though there were also a few lanterns here and there, for additional light, otherwise the space would be a bit too dark.

There were a lot of grenoil around, but also plenty of people from other races. Then again, this was right under the docks, so I supposed it made sense. There were inns on almost every level, and I noticed a few taverns below with magical lights hovering around their signs to grab people’s attention.

“Ah, a map,” Caprica said before moving to a large board pressed against one of the walls. It had a with every building in the city marked on it, and next to them, in a teeny-tiny font, a list of what could be found there. There were also lines connecting the buildings, showing how to get from one to the other. “Looks like the university quarter is just three buildings away. It shouldn’t be too hard to get there from here.”

As it turned out, that was a little bit wrong.

Sure, three buildings wasn’t far, as the crow flies, but it was also three gaps away, and those gaps were covered by bridges, and not all bridges were on the same level. We found one to the building across, but then had to go down three floors for the next one, and then that building was residential, and the next bridge over was in a private area, so we had to climb back up, cross another bridge, then a second, then go down another two floor, then across again.

All in all, we might have only been half a kilometre from the university quarter, but it took a solid hour of twist and turns and getting a smidge lost before we found our way over.

“Okay,” Caprica said. She was keeping it together, which was nice. “Now... Mister Celiga is a historian. All we need to do is find the history department and we’ll know where he is. Easy as sugar pie.”

It was not as easy as pie, sugar or otherwise.

We stepped into the building, crossing a bridge that had a sign hanging by its middle with ‘University Pad’ written on it in a very formal-looking script. The inside smelled like old paper and ink, and there were a lot of younger grenoil loitering around the lobby we stepped into. 

There were bulletin boards covered in flyers stuck to the walls and students milled around, wearing various robes cut in different colours of cloth and in different styles, most carrying handfuls of books and scrolls. I noticed a few of them looked baggy-eyed, even for grenoil.

“Okay,” I said, stepping up next to Caprica and peering down one of the wide hallways leading off the lobby. “Anyone see a map?”

“I do,” Awen said. She pointed to a plaque near the reception desk. It was behind a wall of glass and surrounded by small drawers labeled with letters. “I think that’s the directory.”

Caprica strode over first, with all the authority of someone who had definitely not just gotten us mildly lost for an hour. She stared at the directory for a moment, then frowned. “This is... alphabetical by subject. But not in the Common tongue.”

“It’s in Grenish,” Amaryllis said as she leaned in. “I can read it, give me a moment.”

Desiree hummed. “Would this not be a good moment to ask for help from a local? Perhaps a charming young student? One with a loose tongue and helpful manners?”

Amaryllis didn’t look up. “And risk being sent three floors up and four buildings over because someone thinks it’s funny? Pass.”

It took Amaryllis a moment, but she had the directory open and plucked out a map of the entire building, with a route from the lobby to the history department marked out. I wasn’t sure if we were allowed to just take it, but we... kind of just did.

The path led us down two more winding corridors, past a cafeteria that smelled surprisingly good, then up a narrow spiral staircase. At the top, it deposited us at a door made of thick, dark wood with HISTORICAL RESEARCH AND STUDIES carved neatly across the top.

This was it, I figured!