Rouge XIX (Patreon)

Rouge’s fifteen minutes ended before they quite managed to circle the island, but when they were finally forced to land, they just followed the beach until they found themselves back at the little port where the Western Star was moored. There, she found Vexxx waiting impatiently, and she could actually see the effort he had to put into not snapping at her for taking so long. Instead, he just took a long, deep breath, and said, “I found out where the crustacean cake place is. Are you ready to go ask them about Cap’n Matt?”

Rouge hopped down off Wally’s back, actually feeling a little embarrassed that she’d just run off when they needed to focus on their quest. The [Avian Flight] skill could only be used once per day, and if they didn’t use all of it, the rest was lost the moment Codswallop’s toes touched the ground. So, once they took off, she never wasted even a second. Still, she probably should have told Vexxx she’d be gone for a while, even though she’d really, really wanted to see the look on his face when they took off.

She cleared her throat, tugging at a curl. “Um, yeah. Yep. Definitely.” She gave him an apologetic smile, and his shoulders visibly tensed before relaxing again.

“It’s… okay.” His eyes lingered on Codswallop, and he swallowed hard, Adam’s apple bobbing. “If I could fly, I’d probably never come back.”

Rouge winced. While players - Travelers - could give rides to Natives, two Travelers couldn’t ride the same mount, presumably because everybody got their own during the tutorial. That meant that while Rouge could (and had) given rides to everyone from Aspen to Juniper, and, she was pretty sure, every single child in Refuge, she couldn’t offer the same to Vexxx. Though…

Her eyes narrowed. “If I tied a rope to Wally, and if he could lift you, would you want to ride with us? Maybe we could rig up a sling or something.”

She watched pride war with suppressed excitement on Vexxx’s face, and he finally shrugged, eyes sliding away. “Whatev-” He cut himself off. “Yeah. That would be lit.”

Grinning, Rouge leaned over and bumped him with her shoulder. “Deal. Now, where’s this bakery?”

He actually laughed. “Not a bakery. Or at least, not completely. Wait until you see.” He started off down the beach, and Rouge followed along behind, leading Wally, while Silus looped around them both. A few people stared at their admittedly unusual little group, but most seemed to have better things to do, and Rouge was there for it.

Soon enough, they heard raised voices ahead, and when they rounded a curve of sand, a large, open market was revealed. The stalls were mostly shaded by a dense stand of palm trees, and people wandered around in the pleasantly cooler area, talking and browsing as vendors called out, vying for their attention and their money.

Just outside the first row of booths, there were several horses tethered in the shade, along with a few carts and the mules or horses pulling them. There wasn’t enough room between the tightly-packed stalls for both people and mounts, so Rouge led Wally to the other steeds. Looping the ostrich’s lead loosely around the trunk of a palm tree, she pulled a cinnamon roll from her inventory and held it just out of reach as the wily bird darted his head around, trying to snatch the treat from her fingers.

Laughing, Rouge finally gave it to him, then took his head between her palms and stared into his innocent brown eyes. The long lashes fluttered, and she shook her head. “Wally, be good. Don’t steal anybody’s food, and don’t go wandering off.” He tilted his head, chirruping, and she gave him a good view of the Eyebrow Lift. “No, you can’t eat anything strangers give you, either. We’ve talked about this.”

Recently, the feathered moocher had started begging for scraps from random people in Refuge. Honestly, he was worse than her dog, Max, and if Rouge hadn’t known it was probably a result of Aspen being around them so much, she would have thought Bridget was pranking her. Not that it wasn’t Bridget’s fault, in the end, since she was the one who had made it so that Natives who interacted with Aspen would continue to grow and evolve much like normal people, rather than stalling out at some pre-set point.

Codswallop huffed a sigh, fluffed his feathers, and plopped down on the ground. Sulkily, he began pecking at the nearby plants, though the baleful glare he gave her made it clear what he thought of the taste of tropical foliage.

She just shook her head. “If you’re good, I’ll give you another bun when I get back.”

Instantly, the bird’s head popped back up, and he seemed to nod, as if to say, ‘It’s a deal.’

Vexxx stared between Rouge and the bird. “It’s so weird how you do that. I just give my horse basic animal feed once a day, and have the stable brush him whenever we’re in a town and I have the money.”

Rouge shrugged. “Which is why your horse fell off the boat.”

Vexxx looked pointedly at one of Wally’s long claws, where it poked out from beneath his fluff. “No, my horse fell off because he didn’t have six-inch daggers on both feet.”

She, too, looked at the talon, then back at him. “Fair.”

They smiled at each other, and Vexxx turned, heading into the market. “They said it was three rows in, and-”

::Found it!:: Silus crowed, and Rouge looked around. At some point, her little friend had vanished, and Rouge hadn’t even noticed. That was a little worrisome, but it sounded like the bat had scouted out their target, which was literally her job, so Rouge couldn’t fault her.

Rouge and Vexxx picked up their pace, passing between one, two, then three rows of stalls. Peering to the right, Vexxx pointed, and Rouge saw one of the most bizarre sights she’d ever encountered, in-game or out.

Fish flew through the air in a complex juggling act, tossed between three men who somehow managed to perfectly catch the slick, slimy seafood and also call out the name and price of each one as they did. “Red Snapper!” Slap. “Two Gold!” Slap. “Sea Bream!” Slap. “One Gold!” On and on, and when a passer-by purchased a particular piscean offering, whichever of the trio held the fish would toss it to a fourth young man, who would snatch it out of the air, wrap it in paper, and throw it to the buyer. If the customer managed to catch it without fumbling, all four vendors would shout, “Huzzah!”, and the wrapper would toss a few coppers or a silver back as well. It was like a dance, and Rouge just stared in amazement until she noticed the little bat darting in and out of the fishy formation.

::Silus!:: she called. ::Don’t make them-::

Too late. One of the trio of tossers had noticed the bat, too, but his reaction wasn’t what Rouge had expected. Instead of becoming flustered, the man didn’t miss a beat, just tilted his head at the bat as he threw a halibut to the next man, and that man did the same for the third, until all three men were actually throwing the fish even higher in the air, giving Silus more time to navigate around them in increasingly complex loops. It was beautiful, in a peculiar way, and when the exhausted bat dropped out, flying over to land on Rouge’s shoulder, the oldest of the jugglers stepped neatly out of the formation and followed, leaving the other two to continue to seamlessly throw seafood back and forth.

The man’s eyes rested approvingly on Silus as he smiled at Rouge. “Your bat is very well trained, Miss,” he said. “I don’t suppose you’d be willin’ to sell her?”

Oddly, this wasn’t the first time someone had made a similar offer, and Rouge instantly shook her head. “She doesn’t belong to me. Silus is her own person.”

Lifting his brows, the man focused on Silus. “Would you like a job, then, Miss Silus? We’d pay you all the fish you can eat.”

Silus burrowed in under Rouge’s hair. ::Yuck! It just looked like fun, is all.::

Rouge laughed. “She’s not really a fish-eater. Bugs and fruit. She just thought it looked like fun.”

The man sighed in exaggerated disappointment, but didn’t really look surprised. “Ah well. I had t’ try. Now, can I interest any of you in some fish?”

Rouge wrinkled her nose. She didn’t cook with fish, though she liked to eat it well enough, but the idea of handling any food that could still look back at her wasn’t particularly appealing. Still, it would be perfectly preserved in her inventory, and maybe Millie would have some idea what to do with it. Her mouth watered at the thought of Millie-made sushi, and she opened her mouth to say she’d take some tuna, if they had any, when Vexxx interrupted.

“We’re actually looking for cookies.” He held up his hand, holding his fingers apart in about the size of the shell Matilda had drawn for Rouge. “It looks like a scallop shell, and it’s filled with lobster cream.”

“Crème,” Rouge corrected, and her cousin rolled his eyes at her.

“Oh!” the fish juggler said, snapping his fingers. “The lobster madeleines! Aye, my wife invented them.” He chuckled warmly. “Our youngest wanted a lobster cake for her birthday one year, and my wife misunderstood. Vesta was a wee bit disappointed, until she tried one, and now they’re a fixture around here.”

Turning, he called out, “Vesta!” and a young woman leaned out of a nearby booth.

“Yes, Da?”

The man motioned to Rouge and Vexxx. “These two want some of your cookies!” Looking back at the two players, he lifted a hand. “Now, I need to get back to work, or those two young layabouts’ll complain I didn’t do my share o’ the work today. Let us know if you want any fish, eh?” Without another word, he stepped seamlessly back into the rhythmic rain of fish, and the three jugglers returned to their patter.

Meanwhile, Vesta smiled cheerfully at Rouge and Vexxx, motioning them closer. As they walked over to the booth, Rouge could see a display case filled with confections of all kinds. There were glistening, jewel-like mini-cakes, colorful chocolates, plump rolls, breads twisted into complex braids, and, finally, the golden, shell-shaped cookies Matilda had described. Little signs in front of each item explained what they were. Apparently the lobster crème wasn’t the only filling that was used in the madeleines, and Rouge’s mouth began to water as she read the labels.

Lifting a hand, she did something she’d only ever seen done in k-dramas. “I’ll take everything from here,” she swept her hand over the case, “to here.”

The two women behind the counter, Vesta and an older woman who Rouge assumed was her mother, stared at her in shock. “Ah, lass,” the mother said, gently, “that’ll be almost thirty gold for the lot-”

Rouge nodded enthusiastically. “That’s fine.” She bit her lip as she thought about her neglected [Haggle] skill. “Um, I mean, is there a bulk discount? Or something?”

There was, but Rouge had kind of shown her hand by being willing to accept the initial offer. Still, as she handed twenty-five gold over to the gleeful women, she received a notification.

You have gained a level in [Haggle]! It is now level 19!

Well, that was something, at least. After all, eventually she would run out of money, and if she didn’t even make an effort, she would regret it when that day came. As she did a little inventory management, trying to slot all the different kinds of sweets into her bags, she couldn’t bring herself to regret her choice, though.

While she moved a few items from a normal bag to her Body Bag, she half-listened while Vexxx asked about Captain Matt. Vesta and her mother were more than happy to answer any questions their customers might have, but the mother just shook her head while Vesta frowned.

“I… think I might remember him? He only came through once or twice a year, but he’d always comment on how much I reminded him of his daughter.” She reached up and touched her brown hair, which was pulled back into a bun, with only a few curling strands at her temples indicating that it was probably as unruly as Matilda’s when it was down. Vesta had brown eyes, too, though there the resemblance ended, at least to Rouge’s eyes. Still, for a father missing his little girl, that was probably enough.

Rouge slid the last stack of cookies into a bag that should have been too small for it, and nodded. “That was probably him. Brown hair, blue eyes, tall, wearing a blue uniform.” That was literally all Matilda could remember of her father, and Rouge’s heart had ached as the little girl stumbled, desperately trying to recall any detail that might help Rouge find him.

Vesta nodded with a little more confidence this time. “Yes, I think so. He stopped coming about three years ago. I just assumed he moved on to another route.”

Dawning realization crossed her mother’s expression, and then she bit her lip, looking away. Rouge focused on her. “Do you remember him now?”

The woman shook her head, looking at Vesta, and her eyes caught on the empty case in front of them. Some internal battle played out on her face, and then she sighed, shoulders slumping. Reaching out, she placed a hand over her daughter’s. “Aye, I remember him now. He was a kind man, an’ we were at the end of his route, so he was always anxious to get back to his little girl.” She met Vesta’s confused gaze. “His was th’ last ship those pirates took. We didn’t tell you, since you liked him so well.”

Looking back at Rouge and Vexxx, she shook her head. “The ship went down with all hands, as I heard it. He’s likely long dead, unless-” She broke off, looking grim.

Rouge leaned forward. “Unless what?”

Everyone else leaned in as well, and the woman softly murmured. “Unless he was captured, and the worshippers of Gurang bought him. Though,” her mouth flattened, “if they did, he’s still gone, though his end would have been less peaceful than simply drowning, or even being run through by a pirate’s sword.”

Quest update: “Don’t Be So Shellfish”

You have received a clue that Cap’n Matt may have been sold to the Gurangalongians. Investigate, and find out what you can of the captain’s fate.

Rouge blinked away the notification, frowning a bit. Usually, the only quests that gave updates were the ones with percentage completion rates. It was strange that she’d gotten one now.

Then she heard the screaming begin.