He Investigates the Troublemakers

By the time he had finished the last of his meal, Earnest only learned that the baker was so swept up in her own lovelife that she had almost no awareness of the ongoings outside of her bakery-home. He did learn that Rosalind was a regular, and that in the past she loved to eat the sweet bread nearly every day, but had recently decided to switch things up and try other pastries. Earnest sarcastically congratulated himself on managing to investigate her lunch preferences, “mission accomplished”, he thought.

As he stepped out of the bakery, he saw that the dirt paths did a remarkable job preserving the prints of any feet that fell upon them. Looking at the topmost tracks, he reasoned that they must trail behind the last person to leave the bakery, Rosalind. However, he recalled that his conversation with Rosalind was painfully slow, awkward, and devoid of satisfying answers, so he began his afternoon by visiting the portion of the village that he had yet to cover in the morning.

The first building he saw next appeared to be another storefront, one that stood alone. It seemed like the baker’s architectural tastes hadn’t caught on with the other villagers just yet. Upon closer inspection, the building was certainly much older than the bakery-house. Once he was able to see the faded design on the store’s hanging sign board, he knew this fine establishment was a tailor. Earnest went inside to see a middle aged couple sewing rugged clothing.

Like many of the other villagers, they had heard of his arrival and were very amicable. Earnest started asking his usual probing questions regarding Rosalind, and quickly found that they knew no more than the rest. He moved on to asking about rumors. Perhaps there was some witch or something. Earnest’s creativity ran dry as he became tired of receiving the same useless answers. Amazing… he had found out that the wife was a seamstress and the husband was not only a tailor, but a cobbler as well. However, when he routinely asked if they had heard anything regarding the misfit boys, the husband had more to offer.

“Heard anything? We ain’t ever not hearn’ somethin’!”

“Our little Barney is one of those boys you know! He keeps getting pulled around by ‘em!”

They showed off the bookshelf that Barnabas stored his beloved books upon. It was by no means a large collection, but Earnest recognized some of the titles as belonging to fairly complex topics. He noticed a few books on magic were present and clean of dust, causing him to wonder whether Rosalind had borrowed them.

“He’s too good for ‘em! Them other boys ‘er makin’ ‘im do no good things.”

“And we get an earful every time! Even though they know my Barney is the good one, the ladies still say ‘oh my, did you hear about what Barnabas was up to? My goodness me!’ with all the venom of a snake!”

Earnest was mildly amused by the extra high-pitched impression that the wife did of the gossiping ladies he had seen at the inn. At this point, the couple were like a boulder rolling down a hill, and Earnest was just along for the ride. They complained about the other two members of the misfit boys, Ricard and Thomlin, and pinned all the blame for the group’s mischief on Ricard. Thankfully, the tricks and pranks from the group had abided almost entirely in recent time. The village was thankful for this change, hoping that the rambunctious youths had finally matured.

“I’ll tell ye, a lil’ pain makes a boy into a man.”

“He was so down after failing the exams, I’d like to think that my little Barney grew up into a fine young man and led those other troublemakers to the right path. These days he’s with them more than ever, so it must be him.”

“Yep, he’s a good ‘un, and he’s gonna be th’ one to join this old man in th’ shop. He mightn’t ‘ave passed th’ exams, and mightn’t ‘ave enough magic, but he’s my son an’ he’s got good hands for detail!”

While listening to the two parents talk about their son, it seemed like Barnabas was out of the house now more than ever. Perhaps he was Rosalind’s teacher? Earnest asked them whether Barnabas had been meeting with Rosalind recently. They told him that it was possible for him to meet Rosalind, but they didn’t know for sure. They only saw their son leave for the misfit boys’ secret base, and didn’t know what he did once he was there, so it could be that he was teaching her.

Earnest asked where this secret base was. According to Barnabas’s parents, the group did well to keep their secret base a secret from most of the villagers, but of course the parents of the boys couldn’t leave it at that and followed them when they were building it. They gave him directions to the hidden location and wished him luck on his way out.

With a fresh lead, Earnest followed the directions into the forest around Knottori. The way was not actually that hard to find, as Earnest had experience tracking animals, criminals, and monsters through forests. He saw snapped branches, worn bushes, and somewhat regularly trodden ground as he finally reached his destination. As soon as the roughly constructed wooden base was in sight, he stopped, and began to creep closer, taking care to not make any noise. He saw that a window wasn’t fully covered with the cloth that served as a curtain, and proceeded to cover one of his eyes with his hand. After his eye had acclimated to the dark, he used it to peer through the small opening, into the base.