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  [colpse]Chapter One Hundred and Forty-Seven - In Which Broccoli Gets to Wear Many Hats

  I stared at the straw hat with its one poked-through hole, then I gnced up at the prompt I’d summoned from Mister Menu.

  Mad MillineryF - 00%The ability to gain proficy or skills from wearing headgear.

  I looked back down at the straw hat and tried to put two and two together in a way that made sense. Instead I came up with a fat load of nothing.

  Amaryllis leao the side a little, as if to better see my face. “I ask the woman at the ter to see if they have a washroom,” she said.

  “What?”

  She gestured to my face. “You’re either more fused than usual, or you’re trying hard not to pass gas.”

  “Amaryllis!” I said before looking around to make sure no one heard. “That’s rude!”

  “Says you,” she said. “So what’s got you so fused? It ’t be the hat. If it falls apart at one poke it’s just pin unimpressive. We might have to buy it to avoid making a se though.”

  I wiggled the hat I’d poked. “When I made a hole in this I got a skill,” I said.

  She closed her eyes a out a long suffering sigh. “Please tell me you didn’t get some hat-destru skill?”

  I shook my head. “No, nothing like that,” I said. “I got.... Mad Millinery.”

  Her brows knit together and she looked betwee and myself. “That’s a new oo me. Millinery not so much. It’s a rather dull but necessary profession. It’s the ‘Mad’ part that sounds bizarre.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “The skill description says something about gaining skills from wearing headgear.”

  Amaryllis’ eyes narrowed. She took the hat from my hands, twisted it around a bit, then jammed a talon through it to make a hole opposite the one I’d already made. “Put this on,” she said.

  I snorted and bowed my head a bit so that my ears could dip forwards. It was kind of tricky pointing them into the holes, like sliding a thread through the eye of a needle, only instead of thread it was a somerehensile furry limb and instead of a hole it was... a hole with bits of quashed straw around it.

  Wiggling my head a little so that my ears waddled through did the trice the first bits were through, though that did make the tufts of white fur at the base of my ears squish too.

  New Skill Acquired: FroligRank: F

  I blinked. “Amaryllis,” I said.

  She took a deep breath as if expeg something terrible. “Yes, Broccoli?”

  “I just unlocked the Frolig skill.”

  The harpy smacked a wing over her face. “World dammit, Broccoli.”

  I pulled the hat off my head and held it up half my ears.

  Skill Lost: Frollig

  “Ohh,” I said. “I get it.” I let the hat go and it plopped back down after I wiggled my ears a bit to loosen them. I regaihe Frollig skill. “My new skill provides a skill based o I’m wearing.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” Amaryllis said.

  “Of course it does,” I said. “It’s a skill-skill. The hat helps you do something, in this case.” I tapped the brim of the straw hat. “Frollig! I guess that at the lowest rank the skill it gives isn’t all that helpful, but I bet it’ll get higher if I get my Mad Millinery skill up too.”

  “And how, exactly, would you increase that skill’s rank?” Amaryllis asked.

  I rolled my eyes. Not because I was an eye-rolling kind of girl, but because I k would bother the heck out of Amaryllis and she was cute whe flustered. “Obviously by wearing s.”

  I frollicked expertly over to the rack of bun-wearable hats and started to search through them. This new skill was giving me all sorts of ideas. Not only was I now able to get some emporary skills, it also allowed me to try all sorts of things that I might like. And then I could figure out which hat ropriate for any given situation.

  It erfect!

  “Just don’t go overboard,” Amaryllis said as she followed me at a more sedate and b pace. “I’m not going to bankroll your hat-shopping spree.”

  “Just you wait. I’ll find a banker hat and bee ri no time at all.”

  I slid the sunhat off and ha to Amaryllis who tucked it under a wing, then I looked over the many, many hats on dispy. I couldn’t afford that many of them, so I’d o pick out those with the skills tied to them.

  The first hat I picked off the rack was the stra ohere. A pair of long wooly tubes that looked more like socks, held together with a cloth strap betweehey were open at the ends and very floppy.

  I wasirely sure they weren’t socks until I used Insight on them.

  A pair of new Bun earmuffs of unon quality.

  I picked up the earmuffs and carefully slid my ears into the tube until just the tip was stig out of the top. They were quite snuggly and warm, and the little strap made to run down under my kept them firmly in pce.

  New Skill Acquired: Cold Resistank: F

  “Huh, cold resistance,” I said. A g the price, which was fairly low, and I decided that I could use a pair of nice warm earmuffs. I might have to buy a sed pair for my other ears, but that was okay. I bet I could find some with matg colours! Or trasting colours!

  I gave the bunny-ear muffs to Amaryllis, then picked up a nice bo with some silk-lined holes cut into it.

  New Skill Acquired: IntimidationRank: F

  I pulled the bo off and used Insight on it.

  A pretty floral bo of on quality.

  “Oh-kay,” I said as I set that one aside.

  I tried on a beahat gave a bonus to poisoance, and a small sombrero that granted guitar-pying skills.

  Those weren’t the hats that really had me excited though. Those I set aside and lihem all up. Three beautiful pieces of headwear that stood out from all the rest.

  The first was a op hat, all bck satin with a red band around it that partially hid the holes cut into it. I set it atop my head with all the revere deserved, then grinned wide as its prompt appeared before me.

  New Skill Acquired: CajoleryRank: F

  “Perfect,” I said. “I should wear this oo the ball!”

  Amaryllis tilted her head to one side. “The band’s the wrong colour,” she pointed out.

  “I’m sure I find a blue oo go on top of it. Or we could get it repced. It ’t be that hard.”

  “Fair enough. What’s the skill for it?” she asked.

  “Cajolery,” I said. “It’s not ballroom dang entlemanliness like I thought it might be, but it still sounds like a useful social skill to have.”

  She nodded. “That does sound good to have. World knows you might .”

  I added the hat to the hat pile, then picked up the o was a tri, with a big feather in its side and an expertly piop. It was no doubt one of the biggest, most eborate hats around, especially with the bits of silver poking through in the form of bird-shaped brooches here and there.

  New Skill Acquired: CaptainingRank: F

  “Yes!” I cheered. “Sky captain Bunch is a go!”

  Amaryllis shook her head to hide a smile. “You got an airship-reted skill?” she asked.

  “Captaining,” I said. “It sounds perfect.”

  She sighed. “I suppose. The only issue is that I’d have to accept you as my captain on our trip.”

  I turo her, eyes widening and ears drooping.

  “Urgh, I don’t mind it that much,” she said. “Now stop looking at me as if I’ve offered to sell ys by the dozen.”

  I ughed and pulled her into a quick hug. A quie, because I had o hat to try on. The tri came off and was added to the growing yes pile, and then I rubbed my hands together in mounting anticipation.

  The final hat, uhe tri, didn’t have all that many embellishments, feathers or doodads stuck to it. It was a rather pin hat, if a bit of a big one.

  “Insight,” I muttered.

  An old bun wizard's hat of unon quality.

  For all its piness, the wizard’s hat was geous. Tall, with a floppy peak and a brim so wide that it gave the sombrero a run for its mohe wizard’s hat was exactly what I imagined a proper wizard ought to wear.

  “That thing is disgustingly old fashioned,” Amaryllis said.

  “It’s perfect,” I rebutted as I picked it up and plopped it on. The hat’s brim drooped a bit around me, and its peak flopped from one side to the other until it ushing one of my bun ears out of the way, but it was still a fortable fit.

  New Skill Acquired: Mana ManiputionRank: F

  “Yes!” I said as I bounced up and down. I crashed into Amaryllis with a big happy hug so that I could share some of the joy. “It gives Mana Manipution! Fireballs for days!”

  “I shudder in sympathy for the world,” she deadpanned.

  I giggled as I imagined how much easier casting big plicated fireballs would be now. To be fair, at rank F, it wasn’t that big of a boost. In fact, the lowest rank of stuff didn’t seem to give any instincts or knowledge at all, nothing that I couldn’t figure out, at least. So I’d o get things to rank E and D to really profit from it.

  Which meant grinding my ability to wear hats.

  That sounded easy enough.

  “Are you going to try on your turtle hat?” Amaryllis asked.

  I nodded. “Of course! I’ve been wearing that one for a long time now. But it’s back at your house.”

  I hadn’t seen much point in shopping with armour on, so I’d go in only the dress part of my battledress. It was a lot breezier and not as heavy.

  “ you pass me the straw hat? I want to see if I practice my frolig teique.”

  “You moron,” she muttered as she juggled through the pile of hats I’d been shoving into her arms ached the o the very bottom. In thanks, I plopped my new wizard hat atop her head.

  “That looks ni you,” I said. “You should get a proper wizard-y outfit. Maybe a staff?”

  “That’s a bit phallie,” she dismissed.

  I shrugged. I didn’t know what style that was, but if she didn’t think it suited her, then that was that.

  “You’re thinking stupid thoughts again,” Amaryllis said.

  “What? No I’m not! I’m thinking that you’re able to pick out your own way of dressing,” I said.

  She narrowed her eyes. “That sounds borderline idiotic.”

  I protested in the most civil way I could think of by stig my to at her and frolig my way over to the ter to pay for my bounty of new hats.

  ***

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