BO'H - Chapter 03 - Skipping Town

A little over a week after I had agreed to Nora’s plan, the two of us arrived at the airship dock. The sun had just begun to rise over the chimneys of the surrounding homes, and between the smoke from those and the reflections of the dawning light off of the stained glass that permeated this district, it was turning out to be a beautiful morning. If it weren’t for the prospect of a new adventure, it almost would have felt like a shame to leave!

Walking beside me, Nora seemed dressed more for a casual night on the town than a trek into a potentially dangerous ruin. We were still a long way off from that, of course, and to her credit, she’d done her research on what to bring for a trip like this. A few sturdy outfits, some spare food in case the supplies I’d packed on my ship ran out, a moderate amount of rope, all wrapped tightly in a bedroll. I suppose I should have expected as much, knowing Nora. After all, the woman spent most of her time poring over my expedition logs looking for inaccuracies. It only made sense that she’d have picked up on the basics.

“Like what you see, O’Hammond?” D’oh! She’d caught me scrutinizing.

“Can’t blame a man for looking, can ya?” I shot back, laughing. “Good to see you’ve been paying attention to my notes!”

She chuckled and opened her mouth, no doubt to sass me back, only to stop at the sight of something ahead of us. I traced her line of sight to an oddly-dressed group of men standing outside of the archway leading to the docks. As we approached, the three of them moved to completely block our way in.

“Funny seein’ you here. Thinkin’ of skippin’ town, are ya?” The smallest of the men glared at us. The fellow was shorter than me, even, despite seemingly being human. He wore a bowler cap and a black vest, which would have almost looked professional had the shirt underneath it not been made from the most motley assortment of eye-assaulting patches of cloth I had ever seen..

“Not sure what you mean-” I began, with a sentence that would almost certainly have made the situation worse had I been allowed to finish it.

“Not you, Stumpy.” One of the larger men growled, pointing at Nora. “Her.”

“Nora? You know these, er… gentlemen?” The look on her face suggested that she very much did, and that seeing them here was the last thing she could have possibly wanted.

“Damn right she knows us,” spat the unfashionable one. “Little Miss Albright here took out quite a sizable loan a night or two ago, claimin’ she’d pay it back plus interest in just a few months! Naturally, that sorta promise don’t sit right wit’ us, so we decided we’d stake out the easiest ways outta town just to be safe.” He gave Nora another pointed stare. “Seems we made a good call.”

“Now now, boys, you have it all wrong!” Nora stammered. “My friend here is a noted explorer and author! I’m merely accompanying him on his next case to make sure we can get his next novel out on time and get your money to you as expeditiously as possible!”

The three men exchanged glances loaded with more skepticism than I was aware could fit onto a person’s face. Crime-Against-Eyesight then gave me an unconvinced look. “I never heard of no dwarf author.” He then looked back and forth between myself and Nora for a while. “Even if I believed you, that don’t explain why you’re here with him, lookin’ like you’re about to go on a trip.”

“Well, I’m his editor, of course!” The poor girl was sweating. Apparently she had been expecting to put this behind her during our little excursion. I was half tempted to let her deal with these schlubs alone, but something told me they weren’t in any mood to listen to her excuses.

“Damn good one, too. Completely invaluable to my writing efforts.” I stared the small man dead in the eyes. “However, if you don’t want to take our word for it…” Slowly but confidently, I reached my hand towards my shoulder, then quickly swung my oversized rifle around on its shoulder strap until it thunked down into my hands, casually pointing somewhere in the vicinity of his crotch. “This is Bridget. She would ask you to get out of our way so that we can go about getting that money you so strongly desire.”

A glimmer of doubt appeared in the little man’s eyes. He’d never heard of me, obviously, so he had no idea what kind of a man I was. Was I the type who would open fire on another man’s family jewels for threatening an associate? Even if I wasn’t, I now had the draw on him and his goons. That fact was evidently foremost in his mind as one of said goons started to reach for his hip, only for Patches to reach back and stop him.

“Good call there, friend.” I smiled grimly. “I’m certain I’m a good enough shot to have simply taken the gun out of his hand, but Bridget is a ‘go big or go home’ kinda gal. I can’t promise that his hand would not also have been taken off at the wrist in the process.”

The flash of anger - not to mention a strong desire to see a bullet in my skull - in the man’s eyes was a glorious thing to behold. “Listen here, Stumpy, you may have the bigger gun this time around, but I promise ya this: We’ll be meetin’ again, and I’ll make sure ‘Bridget’ there is the thing to finish ya off. Nobody insults me an’ my boys and gets away with it.” He turned with one final, burning glare towards Nora. “And as for you! You make sure you’re back here with our money in two months, or I’ll see if your friend’s girlfriend can’t swing both ways.”

With a sharp snap from their boss, the two cronies fell in behind the man and the three of them stalked off into the nearest alleyway. Nora and I watched them go for a bit, before silently entering the docks. I met with the harbormaster and paid my fees while she stood back, ashamedly digging the toe of her boots into the wooden slats of the docks.

I finally broke the silence as we entered the docks proper and approached the pier where I’d anchored my ship. “So… You mind telling me what that was about?”

“I…” She murmured, still staring intently at the floorboards. “I couldn’t bare to actually leave everyone hanging while we were gone.”

I sighed. “So you visited a loan shark to pay off my debts before we left?”

“I didn’t know he was a loan shark!” She cried, exasperated. “It seemed like a perfectly legitimate establishment!”

“No, no, they all do; I don’t blame you. It’s something you learn from experience, I suppose. It just means we have a bit more to worry about when the time comes to get back here…”

She sniffled a bit. “You mean… You mean you aren’t mad that I’ve gotten us into more trouble?”

“Ha! If I got mad at you for something like that, I’d be the biggest hypocrite this side of the Tear, what with the number of times you’ve dug my sorry ass out of worse!” I slowed down a bit to reach up and giver her a reassuring pat on the back. “You did what you thought was the right thing, taking on a bit of debt to make sure people weren’t left hanging while we were away. It’d be noble if it hadn’t sorta devolved into a thorn in our sides.” She hung her head again at that last bit. “Er, what I meant by that is, that’s how we learn. You tried to do something noble and it fell apart on ya. Now you’ll know for next time!”

Nora chuckled a bit and nodded, wiping at her eyes. “I’m sure you’re right, Mr. O’Hammond. After all, I- Oh my lord, there it is!”

I nearly jumped out of my skin at the sudden change of mood and volume there, but after my heart backed down out of my trachea, I managed to follow her pointing finger. “Oh! Yes ma’am! The Diamanda! Funded by our third novel and a generous ‘donation’ from the Vulcanheim Historical Society for the bulk of my finds.” I beamed with pride in the vessel, its every rivet and crossbeam positively shined. I needed to remember to give Avery a raise, if this adventure paid out. That kid could work miracles with a cleaning kit.

Nora continued to gasp and gawk at every little detail as we approached the ship and climbed into the boarding lift. It was sometimes hard for me to grasp, but in Nora’s eyes, I was a hero. It had taken her long enough to calm down in my presence, but her inner super-fan was still there, just below the surface, and seeing the vessel that had been such a prominent part of my latest journeys had tipped her over the edge once more. I could barely contain my laughter when we finally got on board and she began running from deckhand to deckhand, greeting them excitedly by name, and shaking their hands as they just stared at her, dumbfounded and just a little bit frightened.

“Having fun?” I asked her when she finally joined me on the bridge, exhausted from her self-guided tour.

“More than you can imagine!” She beamed at me. I hadn’t seen her this happy since I first agreed to hire her. “My mental images from your notes could not do this ship justice. Seeing it in person after simply having to imagine in for so long…”

“What kept you from simply swinging by to see it before now? I’ve passed through town more than a few times prior.”

“Work…” Nora sighed. “As much as I love editing your manuscripts, they don’t keep food on the table for long. Nearly every time you’ve passed through town in the past months, the Chronicle has decided my ‘invaluable input’ was necessary in some pointless interview on the other end of the continent… If I didn’t know better, I would think they were deliberately keeping me out of your way!”

I laughed. “Well, you do seem to suddenly become swamped with work whenever I’m around.”

“And not all of it pleasant, if I even have to remind you.” She gave me a playful punch in the shoulder. “The number of times I’ve found you face-down in the street outside of a pub… It’s a wonder there aren’t signs behind every bar in Teicna warning people about you!”

I coughed uncomfortably and suddenly found myself utterly fascinated by the wood grain of the handles on the helm. Nora let out a small gasp. “You mean there are? How scandalous! Imagine if I told the dwarves in my department…”

“Pfff-HA!” She jumped at my sudden outburst, a fitting punishment for the shock she’d given me earlier. “You try that, Miss Albrecht. If anything, that would get them more interested in meeting me than anything I might be able to write! If there’s one thing most dwarven men respect more than a man who can hold his liquor, it’s a man who’s held so much that the barmen don’t let him get anywhere near their stocks anymore!”

“Bah, so you’re all brutes, is what you’re saying!” She laughed, and I joined her, and our talk turned to technical things as I prepared the ship for takeoff. She listened closely and watched even closer, more intent on my casual instructions than any piloting student I’d had the misfortune to tutor in the dry spells between adventures. It was a nice change of pace, both in general and between the two of us.

So often Nora and I just talked business, or else spent our days teasing each other… or in situations that were less rare than I’d like to admit, Nora spent her days telling me off for causing yet another problem in town. Whatever the case, this chance to play mentor was actually quite calming for me, and the woman was an excellent student. In no time at all, she was filling the role of temporary first mate, and we were pulling up and out of the dock, into the free air above Anchorhal. As we put the continent of Mordrekain behind us, Nora decided to turn in for a nap while the air was still clear and her assistance wasn’t necessary, and I left the helm in the capable hands of my regular first mate to take a few laps around the upper decks. It had been too long since I was last on the move. I hadn’t realized until now, but I really did feel pent up on the city streets. Something about them felt stifling and dismal… Even though most of my trips ended with me in dire straits, I couldn’t help but feel more at home there than in a furnished home surrounded by sturdy walls. The safety was just so… boring.

I suppose that explained my behavior in bars.

In any case, none of that mattered now. We were off! Adventure awaited, and the anticipation was making me giddy. It was all I could do to keep from skipping with joy as I made my rounds. Nothing like a good adventure to put that spring back in your step!