I gred at Mister Menu.

  gratutions! Through repeated as your Cute skill has improved and is now eligible for rank up!Rank E is a free rank!

  “Meanie,” I said as I slid out of the bed and dismissed the prompt with a wave. Sure, I was going to accept the free rank, because duh, but it wasn’t a hing to see right after waking up. It wasn’t even like I had done anything all night.

  Did I snore?

  My eyes narrowed.

  Did I snore cutely?

  It couldn’t be. I slept just like any irl.

  After rubbing my eyes and making sure that e was okay after a night spent cuddled up in my arms, I wiped my lips of any drool, then unknotted my blouse which had ridden up as I tossed and turned.

  Then I got up, picked my uhings off the floor, and got ready for the day.

  The free room that Juliette had promised turned out to be quite a bit han the one I had over in Rockstack. It had a single bed tucked up against the far wall, with a dresser and a little desk for my stuff, as well as a windoened up onto a small courtyard at the back of the inn. The Ron and Roll Inn was shaped sort of like a C, with twe bar areas that were on opposite streets ected through an addition that looked han the rest of the building.

  Apparently it had once been two inns. The Ron and the Roll Inn, but after years of peting for the same ers, Julien and Juliette had fallen in love and they biheir inns into one big establishment.

  Once I was all kitted out and ready to go, I picked up e (which meant I was now all kittened out, haha!), pced her in her pce of pride on my shoulder, adjusted my awesome hat and stepped out of my room.

  Julien and about already, serving breakfast to the few people already in the room with a jovial smile. “Ah, Broccoli! How did you rest?”

  “Really well,” I said. “Your beds are super fy. Is there a really rare innkeeper skill that makes your inn so cozy?”

  “Oh-hoh! Zat’s a trade secret,” he said with a tap to the side of his head. “Breakfast?”

  “I’d love some!” I said as I pulled up a stool at the ter and dropped my backpay side. “How much would it cost to rent the same room again tonight?”

  “One sil a night,” he said. “It es wiz breakfast and a smile. For a little more you get two smiles.”

  I ughed as he returned from the kit with a pte covered in eggs and sausage and some freshly baked bread. “Thanks. I think I’ll take you on that offer. Though I thought that one silver a night was for a pce like Rockstack.”

  “Ah, it is more zan what you would pay in ze West end of Port Royal. And zat’s more zen a room near ze docks, zough a pretty young zing like you shouldn’t go anywhere near zere,” Julien expined.

  “Huh. Well, I don’t mind your price, especially not if the food is this good.” I stuck my fork in a sausage and took a big bite of it.

  “Ah, no wonder Juliette took a shio you,” he said with a hand pced over his chest. “So, what adventure awaits you today?”

  “I o find the Exploration Guild and then I’m going to see about joining them,” I said. “After that... I guess I’ll head over to the docks. I want to look at the airships.”

  “Ze guild is easy enough to find,” he said. “The docks... it would be best to avoid zose unless you have business zere. If it’s the ships you want to see, zen zere is a viewing ptform just some streets down. A few cop and you’ll have a perfect view of any ship ing in, and wiz none of the unpleasantness of ze docks.” He slid a blue card with a nyard across the ter. “Zat’s for you, when you want to e back.”

  “That sounds like a pn!” I said as I took the card and watched Julien move off to greet some other ers.

  The card ass allowing one access across the East gate. I guessed that they tried to limit the number of people passing by at any given time.

  Breakfast done, I rushed bay room and deposited most of my stuff. I wouldn’t need hardtad such for a journey across the city. At least, I hoped! My spear was also a bit much, though I had seey of people armed with all sorts of things. I decided that my belt knife and my spade hanging over my back would have to do. That and e of course!

  I tucked a single gold in my bandoleer and two dozen silver and copper pieces, in case I caught sight of somethio buy. Then I was off.

  The East side looked a bit different in the full light of early m. There were more people moving about and snooping through the windows along the tral avenue and plenty more carts being pulled by horses and donkeys and sometimes giant toads. There was even a trolley with a bell that jingled as it stopped every few hundred meters to pick people up and drop them off.

  Grinning, I moved over to the East gate. It was easy tet that the city smelled a lot like poop when it was otherwise such a vibrant and colourful pce. People were ughing and talking, some argued over the things written in the neers being hawked by young grenoil boys on street ers.

  It felt like a se out of a movie set in Victorian Engnd, but also pletely wrong.

  Mages with big staves appeared in the middle of the street with pops, eeams of adventurers with them, and the guards patrolling in twos wore full pte armour and carried long halberds.

  I moved over to one pair that had paused to let a trolley pass. “Excuse me,” I said.

  They looked over to me, two pairs y eyes hidden uhick metal helmets.

  An attentive grenoil City Guard, level ??.

  “Yes, ma’am?” One of them asked. I assumed he was the senior of the two because he had a colourful tassel over his shoulder. “ we help you?”

  “Maybe. I’m looking for the Exploration Guild headquarters,” I said.

  “Then shouldn’t you explore for it?” the younger of the two asked. It earned him a smack against the chestpte.

  The uard pointed northwards. “Just down Guild Row, ma’am. It’s the building with the rge pass rose before it. You ’t miss it.”

  “Thank you!” I said with a wave as I ran off in the dire they pointed. I slowed down a little bit ter, because if I was running then I would miss all the sights and I didn’t want that.

  Guild Row was aire street that climbed up at a fairly steep ahere were strange and colourful buildings on both sides, from the rather pin but homey ary Association building, to the Courier’s Union that had a straower stig out the top with a bunch of panels on pulleys that were moving this way and that, to the Mages Guild building that had a colle of floating pilrs before it.

  I found the Exploration Guild headquarters he middle of Guild Row. It was a simple but stately building with a huge pass rose built into the front with a stylized bandoleer running across it and the name of the guild beh it.

  “Cool,” I said as I moved towards the rge double doors at the front. They opened just as I was reag for them and I had to take a step back to avoid running into a pale skinned and paler-feathered harpy girl. She looked down at me, then scoffed.

  “Get out of my way, nobody,” she growled.

  “Hey,” I said as I did the exact opposite of getting out of her way and stood my ground with hands on hips. “I’m not a nobody.”

  The harpy girl snorted. “You look like auffed pillow in that getup,” she said before shouldering her ast me and stomping dowreet.

  “Rude,” I muttered before looking down at my gambeson. It was rather... pillow-coloured. And fluffy-looking. But if I looked fluffy that just meant that I also looked more huggable. And while I wouldn’t hug just a did mean that I looked more like friend material. I hoped.

  Shaking off the thoughts about my me equipment, I stepped into the lobby of the Exploration Guild and paused to take it all in.

  It looked like a museum. There were shiny ons behind gss dispys and huge, old maps hanging off the walls o tapestries and bahat looked positively a. Jars and urns sat atop pedestals with little pques telling of their stories and in one back er was aire scale model of something with a bunch of rooms ected to each other in a big spiral, eae with a cut-through on the side to reveal the interior. It took a moment to realize that it was a model of a dungeon in three dimensions.

  I stopped gawking after a bit, made a o e bad read every little pque, and moved to the far end of the entrance hall where a waist-high desk hid a Grenoil woman. “Hello,” I said as I approached.

  She looked up from what looked like a neer and smiled at me. “Hello miss. How may the Exploration Guild help you today?”

  “I was curious about joining, actually,” I said.

  “Oh, I see. One moment, I’ll go verify if anyone assist you with that,” she said.

  “No need.”

  We both turned and watched as a man rouhe er at the end of the hall and strode toward me. He was a human, tall and dressed as I imagined a nobleman would, with a big fluffy ascot and a suit jacket that g tightly to his chest.

  He smiled at me. “I couldn’t help but overhear, young miss. You hope to join uild?”

  “I think I do,” I said. “I have a bunch of questions still. Oh, but I do have this!” I reached into one of the bigger pockets of my bandoleer and pulled out the letter Leonard had given me all of a few days ago.

  The man took it and stared at the seal. “Unbroken. From one of our more senior members. Leonard d’nuit?” he asked.

  “That’s him, yeah,” I said. “We met in the Darkwoods.”

  “Well well,” he said with a growing smile. “Would you mind followio my office? I think you might be just what I need.” He looked over to the secretary. “Oh, and could I have a copy of the registration forms, please?”

  “Of course, Mister Rai,” the secretary said before handing over a couple of sheets of part.

  I followed mister Rai (and wasn’t that a name) over te and vish offiot too far from the entrance. He had maps on the walls and a few smaller dispys with strange kniacks, but he gestured me to a chair before his desk before I could really start poking at things.

  “So, miss...”

  “I’m Broccoli, Broccoli Bunch!” I said.

  “Well, Miss Bunch, I’m Tarragon Rai, one of the senior members of the Port Royal branch of the Exploration Guild,” he said while sitting down across from me. He crossed all his fiogether above the forms he had requested. “Do you mind if I read the letter? It’ll take but a moment.”

  “Go ahead,” I said.

  While he read, I resisted the urge to kiy legs while I slowly sank deeper and deeper into the plush chair.

  “Well well,” he said as he set Leonard’s letter aside. His smile was dazzling. “You’re an iing one, aren’t you? I think I might have an iing offer iurn, Miss Bunch, if you’re keen to listen to it.”