I’ve been sharing this on some of my other platforms for my subscribers and since it’s been a while since I’ve shared it on the Realmgard website, here’s a special preview of the original Fryte’s Gold, which I’ve taken to calling Fryte’s Gold Classic as I prepare a revised and rewritten version.
Kat Darkstone knows to expect trouble. It happens when you’re Dunstana Darkstone’s big sister.
But when Dunstana and Kat stumble upon the long-lost hiding place of the legendary treasure of the equally-legendary Captain Fryte, they may be in for more trouble than Kat ever imagined. Even after a hundred years, Captain Fryte will not be easily parted from his treasure.
FRYTE’S GOLD: A TALE OF REALMGARD
J.B. Norman
© Emona Literary Services
Originally published 2017, revised 2021.
For the Sisters Balkovec.
Chapter 1
Kat Darkstone would like to tell you about her sister.
For the first five glorious years of her life, Kat had the three storeys and modestly-sized yard of Darkstone Manor to herself, along with the undivided love and attention of her parents. But for the past ten years, ever since the arrival of a certain Dunstana Felicity Darkstone, Kat has had to share both Darkstone Manor and her parents.
It hasn’t necessarily been a bad thing, it’s just that of all the kid sisters in Realmgard, Dunstana is the… well, Kat isn’t really sure how to describe what exactly Dunstana is.
Dunstana’s definitely the most something of all the little sisters out there.
Something indescribable, occasionally infuriating, but always exciting and equally excitable. Being Dunstana Darkstone’s big sister keeps Kat’s life undoubtedly interesting. And puts her training as a fully-licensed adventurer to good use. Of course, Kat does love her little sister, but Dunstana is not a normal little girl.
Normal little girls don’t pretend to be reasonably successful pirates. But, then, strictly speaking, neither does Dunstana.
She is a reasonably successful pirate.
Kat blames that on their father, Admiral Dorian Darkstone, once a widely-feared, but now happily-retired pirate and current purveyor of artisanal tea-cosies.
The Darkstones have a long family history of piracy. Though she had been regaled nearly every hour of every day as a little girl with her father’s stories of his own daring exploits and those of countless generations of ancestors, Kat has never had much interest in carrying on the family tradition.
She gets seasick whenever she steps onto a boat, she can’t stand the taste of fish, and she only likes getting wet when she’s in the bath.
She’s quite content with her chosen career of freelance adventurer, part-time sales associate at her grandparents’ store, and professional layabout.
As far as Kat can tell, it’s because of her own lack of interest in the family trade that the Admiral has always tried especially hard to turn Dunstana pirate and ensure that the Darkstone family tradition keeps going strong. He’s been largely successful.
He decorated baby Dunstana’s room with images of ships and waves and treasure chests and hung a mobile of famous pirate flags over her crib. The first book Dunstana ever read by herself was the Big Book of Pirates. She’s barely ever put it down since.
She still gazes up in wide-eyed wonder at the Admiral as he tells his pirate stories, even though Kat is sure she has heard them all somewhere between thirty and thirty thousand times.
Kat wonders if the Admiral knew ahead of time that Dunstana would be the one he’d love best. It’s the only explanation she can think of for why she got named after the Admiral’s own beloved grandfather, the legendary Dunstan Darkstone, while Kat got saddled with the absolutely monstrous ‘Hortensia’. She takes some solace in the fact that it’s her middle name, which allows it to be her deepest, darkest secret instead of common knowledge.
Kat doesn’t think she could survive as a Hortensia.
For seven years, little Dunstana was just a girl with a vivid imagination and an inordinate interest in pirates.
But then came the day when she won herself a pirate ship.
Each year, to celebrate Porthaven’s Foundation Day, the office of the Prince of Porthaven gives away all sorts of fabulous prizes through the time-tested method of pulling names from a hat.
Three years ago, the Porthaven Shipworks donated a sailing ship as one of the prizes.
When the time came for the draw for the ship, it was Dunstana’s name that came out of the hat. Clearly, somebody up there wants Dunstana to be a pirate just as much as the little pirate herself does. Thankfully, the Powers gave the world at least enough sense that Dunstana is only allowed to take her ship sailing under the Admiral’s direct supervision.
Like any pirate worth her salt, Dunstana lives for adventure. As the little sister of someone with an Adventuring Licence, that also means she lives for dragging Kat along with her.
And, like any other good pirate, Dunstana thrives on danger and laughs in the face of death. And, like any other good big sister, Kat’s job is to keep Dunstana as far away from the face of death as humanly possible. Dunstana laughs at the face of death. Kat tends to punch it.
Dunstana lives for adventure because of the prospect of fortune and glory promised by those adventures, always on the lookout for whatever treasure she can find. Of course, the treasure isn’t her main concern. It’s the ability to use that treasure to buy things she wants.
That usually means Princess Moonflower dolls.
In a mere three years, with only a little help from her family, Dunstana has found enough treasure and displayed enough business acumen to cover every available surface of her room with Princess Moonflowers.
There’s more pink on Dunstana’s shelves than Kat would have thought possible. It would be impressive if it weren’t so terrifying.
Dunstana may be a mere ten years old, but she’s an endless fountain of energy and determination. Plus, she has — in Kat’s humble opinion, at least — the very best big sister in all of Realmgard watching her back on her adventures.
Chapter 2
It seems like the Sisters Darkstone have their latest adventure looming ahead of them.
Last night before bed, Dunstana told Kat to meet her today in the dockside pub.
Katherine Hortensia Darkstone is nothing if not a dutiful big sister, and so, per her sister’s request, she finds herself waiting over a bowl of soup in Porthaven’s inexplicably most popular public house, the Hammered Nail.
She has a feeling she’s going to end up regretting this, but it’s what big sisters are for. Besides, after all she’s gone through with Dunstana, Kat figures she’s due to catch a break.
She can only find herself in mortal peril so many times before her luck finally starts to turn around. For all she knows, Dunstana just wants to go the library.
Kat can only hope.
There are definitely nicer places in Porthaven than the Hammered Nail. The Nail is dingy, poorly-lit, begrimed with no less than three kinds of dirt, and crowded thanks to too many people trying to fit into not enough space. The food, however, is shockingly adequate.
The Nail has one redeeming quality. It’s a good place for an aspiring — and recently fully-licensed — adventurer like Kat to hang around. There’s something special about taverns that way; they attract adventurers the same way fish heads attract sharks — with a slightly less powerful stench.
For all its faults, the Nail remains one of the best places in Porthaven to meet other adventurers looking to get up to something. There’s a notice board on the back wall where people with problems post their requests in hopes of getting the attention of adventurers with potential solutions.
Most days, all Kat has to do is stand near the notice board looking busy for a few minutes to get invited along on some job or other.
Usually, there’s at least one group willing to give an inexperienced adventurer like Kat a chance.
Today must be a slow day, though, because Kat hasn’t heard anything that might lead to a job. There are a few groups of adventurers mulling around idly picking at various appetiser plates and just generally doing nothing.
She’s wondering if it’s worth it to try to talk to them when the door of the Nail slams open. Kat jumps at the sound, almost tumbling from her stool. If the little shadow stretching across the floor is any indication, Dunstana has arrived.
Kat instinctively tries to make herself invisible.
“Kat!” the little pirate calls eagerly. “Where are you?”
Kat tries to make herself invisibler.
It doesn’t work. Mostly because she’s too tall to hide among the crowd.
“Hi, Kat!” Dunstana exclaims eagerly. Kat waves without turning around.
Even without looking at her sister, Kat can tell Dunstana is excited about something. That’s a bad sign.
Kat has had ten years to learn that the things that make Dunstana excited are usually the things that Kat finds terrifying. Dunstana hops onto the barstool beside Kat.
The old bartender turns to her. “Well, hey there, Captain Kid. What’ll you have?” he asks from behind a colossal beard
“Juice!” she declares. A heartbeat later, she has her juice.
Kat still has to shake her head in bewilderment at how everyone still plays along with Dunstana.
Sometimes, she wonders if she’s the only person in Porthaven to realise how ridiculous the very notion of a ten-year-old pirate is. But at this point, it’s too late to sit Dunstana down and give her a talking-to about how piracy is not a particularly healthy activity for little girls.
Dunstana wants to be pirate, so she’ll be a pirate — and there’s nothing on the Powers’ green earth that could hope to tell her otherwise.
At this point, Kat feels sorry for anyone who would try. It’s a lesson she learned the hard way and after much kicking of her shins.
At a glance, it’s not particularly clear that Kat and Dunstana are sisters, if only because of the age difference – Kat is five years and a few months older than Dunstana. There’s a certain family resemblance, but it’s easy to miss beneath the obvious differences.
Kat’s hair is black. Dunstana’s is somewhere between red and brown and the differences only grow from there. For one, Kat is taller than her sister — about the size of one Dunstana sitting on another Dunstana’s shoulders.
Of course, the tall, wiry Kat manages to be taller than most people and has been for most of her life. The only people she tends to feel anything near short around are very tall Elves; and Elves are always tall.
Kat is the tallest one in her family and has been from a startlingly young age. The other kids had a song about it: “Katherine, Katherine, we agree,” she remembers them singing, “You’re thin as a sliver and tall as a tree.”
That was usually the point at which they got punched. Thankfully, the other kids never learned her middle name. Even if they had, she doesn’t think they could have found anything to rhyme with Hortensia.
While the mocking rhymes are largely a thing of the past, she still tends to get looks for the unusual tallness; and to hit her head on door frames every now and then.
Dunstana’s eyes are green and often widened in wonder, while Kat’s are brown and more often narrowed in bemusement. Usually directed at Dunstana.
Kat tends to wear different shades of black: black pants, black boots, black vest, black gloves. The ribbon keeping her hair in its ponytail changes colour every day, though.
Dunstana wears a miniature pirate outfit: big-buckled boots, frilly-sleeved shirt, brown vest, red overcoat and three-pointed hat. The overcoat is about three sizes too big, meaning her hands tend to vanish into the recesses of her sleeves. The hat, however, makes Kat just a little jealous.
It is a nice hat.
Dunstana looks up at Kat. “What’s wrong, Kat?” she asks.
“Nothing’s wrong,” Kat answers.
Dunstana continues staring at Kat with those big green eyes of her.
“Yes?” Kat asks.
“I was exploring on the beach,” Captain Kid reveals. “And I found a cave. I want to go look inside.”
“Have fun,” Kat says, going back to her soup.
“I need your help, I can’t go alone,” Dunstana states.
“Why not?” Kat asks.
Dunstana blushes a little. “The cave’s too dark. It’s scary,” she admits quietly. The thought of the usually headstrong, often reckless Dunstana actually slowing down long enough to get scared is novel enough to make Kat chuckle.
“It’s not funny,” Dunstana insists, puffing up her cheeks indignantly. It makes her look like some kind of angry chipmunk pirate. That makes Kat chuckle, too.
Kat sighs.
She doesn’t have much of a choice. Bad things happen when Dunstana goes around unsupervised.
Of course, it would be equally irresponsible to let Dunstana go on a treasure hunt alone. She’s only ten years old and much of Realmgard, especially the parts best-suited to treasure hunting, is filled with hungry things with lots of teeth.
This has historically been a harshly-learned lesson for generations of Realmgard’s aspiring adventurers.
It’s also technically illegal for Dunstana to go adventuring by herself. She isn’t old enough to qualify for an Adventuring Licence, but she is allowed to accompany a licensed adventurer as long as they aren’t gone for more than three days at a time.
Kat turns to the bartender and holds up her empty bowl. “More, please.” After she finishes her new serving of soup, she turns to Dunstana. “Fine. I’ll come with you,” she concedes.
Dunstana’s face lights up like the sun. She leaps from her stool and hugs her big sister, almost knocking Kat off her own stool. “You’re the best, Kat!” she exclaims.
“Yeah,” Kat agrees humbly, gently patting Dunstana’s back. “I am.”
Sometimes, it’s hard to have a pirate for a little sister. It has, on various occasions, led Kat to get stuck waist-deep in a swamp, covered in spiders, or chased by furious hogs. There was also that time she got bit by a spider while being chased by hogs through a swamp. She still isn’t entirely sure how that happened.
It isn’t the best job in the world, but it comes with the territory. That’s what big sisters are for, after all. The little sister does something crazy and the big one makes sure she comes back home in one piece.
Chapter 3
The next morning, Kat is right where she wants to be and where she hopes to remain until at least noon.
She is nicely and cosily sequestered in her bed, blissfully dreaming of a wondrous world where kittens frolic playfully and adorably and pudding fountains flow unceasingly and there are no little sisters at all, and all the door frames of the world are either extra-high or well-cushioned.
She hasn’t got a care in the world.
Suddenly, from a million miles away, she feels footsteps falling like thunder, darkening the skies of her perfect dream world.
“Go away, Dunstana,” Kat mumbles to her sister through a faceful of pillow as she is torn out of her wonderful dreamscape back to harsh, cruel reality.
“But Kaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat,” Dunstana whines. “You said you’d go adventuring with me today!”
“Too early,” Kat declares laconically. “Come back later.”
“But Kaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat,” Dunstana repeats, extending her name to about twenty-six times its normal length.
And then comes the poking.
Kat suspects that she won’t be getting back to sleep.
Bidding a final farewell to her dream, she reluctantly sits up. She turns her head and stares at her sister through the cascade of hair that has fallen across her face.
Captain Kid is eagerly staring right back at her.
Kat clears away the wave of black hair obscuring her face.
“Five minutes?” she requests.
Dunstana stares at her suspiciously for a minute before beating a hasty retreat from the room.
Once Kat is free of Hurricane Dunstana’s deafening presence, coherence slowly returns to her. When she has her wits back, Kat asks herself the important question.
“Where did I put my pants?”
She can’t very well go adventuring in her pyjamas. They have far too many frills and pictures of kittens to be good adventuring gear.
She makes her way around her room, searching for wearable clothes. She is once again faced with the fact that her room is a mess. The floor is mostly hidden beneath a layer of discarded clothes, books and her miscellaneous possessions that really have nowhere else to live.
She’d clean up, but if she did, she’d probably wake up some long-forgotten horror slumbering in the depths of Mount Laundry.
She picks up each article of clothing and examines it in turn. Satisfied that everything is clean and wearable, if hugely wrinkled and rumpled, Kat gets dressed. Once she’s got her pants, shirt, and vest on, she steps into her boots and pulls her gloves onto her hands.
She concludes by reaching for her Adventuring Belt and buckling it around her waist.
Like most adventurers, Kat finds herself needing very specific tools for very specific situations.
To account for any eventuality that might arise, Kat houses those tools in the many, many pouches hanging from her Adventuring Belt: rope if she needs to tie things together or do some kind of climbing; the ingredients to make a few quick emergency potions; smoke bombs if she needs to run away; spare bowstrings; her pouch of spare change; and maybe a sandwich or something if she gets hungry.
A pair of daggers hangs from the Belt, because adventuring is a dangerous career. But ever since her grandfather taught her to shoot, Kat has preferred to use her bow. The daggers are for times when there isn’t enough room for archery, or if she ever finds herself facing a life-or-death need to peel potatoes.
Once she’s in adventuring shape, Kat steps out into the hall and heads downstairs. Dunstana and their parents are assembled at the breakfast table.
The Admiral is hidden behind the day’s edition of the Porthaven Times. The most she sees of him is the beefy, hirsute hand that appears occasionally to reach for his coffee cup.
Coffee is a recent arrival to the shores of Realmgard from overseas and no one quite understands how it works. The general consensus is that the wonderful energising drink clearly functions thanks to some kind of secret, heretofore unknown magic. It must be magic.
Kat can’t see any other explanation to account for the change it brings to her father’s demeanour every morning.
Kat’s mother Estelle is preparing breakfast. Kat gets her looks from her mother, including the tallness. At fifteen and still growing, Kat is already a few inches taller than her mother, but Estelle is still taller than any of the other moms Kat knows.
Kat takes her place at the table, beside her father and across from Dunstana. Her mother appears and hands her a plate of breakfast and a cup of orange juice.
Midway through her breakfast, Kat looks to see Dunstana staring eagerly and unblinkingly at her.
“Yes?” she asks through a mouthful of toast.
“Are you done yet?” Dunstana asks in reply.
“No.”
There’s a brief pause.
“What about now?”
“No.”
“Eat faster!” Dunstana commands.
“Maybe you should go get your things together,” Estelle suggests. “Kat might just be finished by the time you’re ready.”
Dunstana hops down from her chair and disappears from the kitchen, leaving Kat free to finish her breakfast in peace.
By the time Dunstana reappears, Kat has finished her breakfast and is working on the last dregs of her juice.
“Are you ready now?” Dunstana asks impatiently.
Dunstana is all set for the adventure at hand, dressed in her pirating clothes, with her fetching hat set determinedly on her head and a backpack slung over her shoulders. From her belt hang her gun and sword.
Kat has always thought it somewhat irresponsible that their parents let Dunstana run around with a gun and sword, but thankfully they’re not real. The sword is wood and the gun shoots corks.
Still, they are enough to do some damage. Kat has firsthand knowledge of that.
Kat reluctantly pushes herself away from the table. “Yeah,” she answers. She looks up at her parents. “I guess that means we’re leaving. We’ll be back when we’re back.”
“Have fun, dear,” Estelle bids.
“Don’t do anything I’d do,” the Admiral jokes from behind his newspaper.
As Kat heads to the door, she reaches for the wall and pulls down her bow and quiver full of arrows from their shelf. If she’s going on an adventure, she’ll probably need to shoot an arrow at something or other. Slinging her quiver over her shoulder, Kat steps outside behind Dunstana. The day is overcast and smells like rain. It’s cold. She should have worn something with longer sleeves. At least it’s not raining. Yet.
“So,” Kat asks, pausing at the door to string her bow. “Where are we going?”
Captain Kid begins to lead her sister towards their latest adventure. As the two sisters make their way through town towards the beach, it starts raining. Kat sighs in exasperation.
Just once, she’d like to have an adventure where nothing goes wrong.
The rain doesn’t deter Dunstana, though. When she’s got an idea in her head, nothing short of the Powers making the sky fall screaming down upon the earth is going to stop her.
Even then, it’d probably only slow her down for a few minutes.
“The cave’s over here,” Dunstana announces when they arrive on the beach and it’s still raining. “Follow me!”
Not having a choice, Kat follows her sister along the beach to a cliff. They’ve gone so far down the beach that Porthaven is barely visible in the distance. In the cliff face, there is a large opening, mostly obscured by the creeping vines growing on the cliffs. Dunstana stands by the yawning maw of the cave.
She had been excited, but now that she is standing in front of the cave, she is starting to hesitate. Still, she’s doing her best to look brave, with her face grimly set with not entirely convincing determination.
“Are you ready?” Kat asks.
“You’re gonna be right beside me, right?” Dunstana replies anxiously.
“Of course,” Kat answers with complete sincerity. “Just like always.”
Dunstana takes a deep breath and nods. “Okay,” she declares. “I’m ready.”
Kat brushes aside the vines and steps into the cave. She just knows that something horrible is waiting to horribly eat her.
A Dragon, probably. Or a Turboshark. Or a Dire Marmot. Or any number of other nasty things. As Kat and Dunstana make their way deeper and deeper into the cave, it gets darker and darker.
Kat is starting to worry that she’ll end up walking right into the Dragon’s mouth without knowing it.
“Do we have light?” she asks when it becomes too dark to continue.
“I hope so,” the little pirate says. “Let me check.” Kat hears her rummaging around. “Aha!” she exclaims in triumph before too long, producing a lantern from her backpack.
The light of the lantern illuminates the cavern, making their surroundings clear. There isn’t much of anything to see.
“Well,” Kat says, surveying their surroundings. “It’s definitely a cave.”
“There’s nothing here,” Dunstana says in sad disbelief. “It’s not even a big cave. It’s just a stupid hole in the ground.”
“You alright?” Kat asks.
“Yeah,” Dunstana sighs. “I was just hoping we’d find some treasure, or something.”
“If there was ever any treasure, it’s probably long gone,” Kat notes. “We’re only a few minutes outside of Porthaven.”
“Yeah,” Dunstana says again. “And there’s a rock in my boot, too.” She throws her hands up into the air. “This is just the worst day ever!” She exhales raggedly.
Kat cautious takes a step closer to her sister, just in case hugs will prove necessary.
Really, the only notable feature of the cave is a large stone sticking out of the ground. Grumbling, Dunstana hobbles over it and moves to sit down to take off her boot and shake the rock out.
As soon as she’s sitting down on the stone, it begins to slowly sink into the ground and the cave fills with a loud shaking.
The rest of Fryte’s Gold Classic is available to read in full online here.
Like I said, I’m in the process of rewriting and getting ready to publish a new, revised version of Fryte’s Gold that I expect will go live this summer, but I’m not planning on completely getting rid of the original version, which I’m thinking will continue to be available in some form.
Stay tuned for that.
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