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In Gath, they say, there is no adventure left to be had. The skies and seas and lands have been fully tamed. The age of pith helmets and exploration were over and gone too were the age-old pursuits of rich young aristocrats. With this is mind Wealwell Gotch, after graduating Biffmore Academy, instead followed the proud and honored tradition laid forth by younger sons of old to become a general layabout fop. Granted, he’d only been the youngest son for two years but that was enough to give him the solid foundation needed for the task.
Besides, someone in the family needed to swan about lazily, aesthetics demanded it, and neither of his fellow younger brothers was going to do it. Maxwell, whose mains passions veered between athletics and pissing father off, appeared to society as a serious academic due to staying in university far past any other Gotch sons.
And the less said about Johnwell, the better. Biffmore traitor, dropping out after a measly half a semester to join The Royal Imperial Cavalry Academy where he outsourced his standing to a rickety beast of burden. Johnwell is somehow Wealwell’s worst brother despite Hatwell’s everything.
Wealwell had found that it’s fun to be a wastrel. He thrives at the casino and booze cruises around the Kabillian Isles, the elegant salt spas of Hawkland, the week-long parties in Bellenuit and all other manner of general fucking and sucking.
Things are going swimmingly until one terrible morning when Blanewell appears at his hotel door. He hardly gives Wealwell, rumpled and hung over, a moment to dress before unceremoniously dragging him from the hotel and onto a train set for Utmany and the Gotch Family manor. All seven Gotch sons were being called to heel, Blanewell said, no exceptions to be had. So much fuss and no one had even died. Their train moves deeper into the CIR where the belch of the smog trains and the general miasma of The Queen’s Smog makes his already queasy stomach roil. Sadly, it’s never been in fashion to wear face masks, too common and poor, so he’s forced to forgo one. He glares at his brother across from him.
“Father could have at least sent Roywell. He’s at least a little bit fun.”
“If you could be trusted to follow simple instructions I would not be forced from my busy schedule to fetch you like an errant child,” his older brother curtly says before he very performatively ignores Wealwell to read the newspaper.
When they finally arrive at the family manor Wealwell is hardly given anytime to freshen up before being called up. In the drawing room there are, disappointingly, no refreshments being served. More disappointing, every last one of his brothers is present.
Since Blanewell brought him here, Wealwell’s much too queasy to dare get close to Hatwell and Wealwell has been pointedly and frostily ignoring Johnwell for years, he only bothers to greet three of his brothers. Wealwell gives a nod to Roywell, kisses Maxwell on the forehead and lets Samwell give him his customary firm shoulder squeeze. There’s just enough time to look judgmentally at Johnwell’s shoes and note that they are narrow with the unbroken shiny leather of a sitting man -ugh, how gauche- before father dramatically strides in with Codswallop haunting his heels.
The following is a financial presentation from Codswallop’s droning voice so torturously dull that Wealwell cannot possibly be expected to listen to nor remember anything said. It’s all blah blah finances blah blah investments blah blah blah Grandfather’s eccentricities. Dullsville. To Wealwell's utter lack of surprise Maxwell almost immediately gets into an argument with father.
Like a train derailment, one cannot look away from the upsetting scene unfolding. Maxwell stands up and looks very close to physically attacking Father. Father elects to call Maxwell a rowdy multiple times with the final time bringing Samwell to his feet who yells back at Father and then start crying.
Oh, and trust that Maxwell would proudly declare himself a rowdy in the middle of the drawing room.
His other brother’s faces have lit up in emotions ranging between horror and cruel delight at this display. Father’s face is purpling alarmingly. Maxwell’s determined stance not withstanding, his declaration is very unlikely to go the way he wants. And Wealwell himself is really not interested to see if Father can actually be pushed to formally disown Maxwell like Samwell often frets about.
Always willing to play the fool Wealwell leans over the arm of his settee and, with two deep coughs, he’s violently sick on the floor flapping his arms about with enough foppish hysteria that everyone’s attention, including Father’s, is pulled from Maxwell. It also ends the meeting and brotherly reunion as the servants come in to clean up and the family is shooed out of the room.
Maxwell’s waiting for Wealwell outside the water closet with an apologetic look and a glass of ginger beer. “I thought, if you wanted to, you could roll with me?”
Maxwell is arguably his favorite brother, despite all his strangeness, so Wealwell agrees if only to get out of the manor and away from the family.
“Do you think we need to tell Samwell we’re heading out?” Maxwell asks with a voice very much asking permission to not have to do that.
Poor old Samwell who was an adult before Maxwell was born and, if ones squints their eyes and pretends, is a much better father then their actual father is but is also so annoyingly coddling, suffocating and naggy. Wealwell doesn’t want to be told to get direction in his life any more then Maxwell wants to be scolded for arguing with Father.
“Shall we go brother, and avoid anyone else whose name ends in well today?” Maxwell perks up at his conspiring tone and allows Wealwell to join their arms and lead them both out of the family manor into a motor carriage and victorious escape.
Wealwell would never assume that Maxwell, unfun serious little brother that he is, intended to rout out a bit of sport and a few drinks. However, it was unexpected to find out that “roll with me” meant immediately heading over to the family's private sky dock and sailing off to Pilby as Father had ordered. Especially not after that terrible display in the drawing room. How boringly responsible.
That said no sooner had Wealwell accepted their unexciting plans did Maxwell do something truly unexpected. Maxwell, grim and lacking in all whimsy, lies to the Gotch retainer in front of them and attempts to steal Grandfather’s old airship that Father had said not an hour ago he was planning on selling.
“You heard him say that, right? Wealwell?” Maxwell turns big pleading eyes at Wealwell as if he didn’t know that Wealwell would back him up in whatever this astounding yet exciting thing he was doing.
Wealwell inspects the retainer before them. Her boots, part of the Gotch family uniform, are an uninspiring pair of knee-high boots of practical black, with a flat cushioned sole to support long legs of standing. She seems hesitant to believe Maxwell so Wealwell plays up the fop idiot, blaming himself for any confusion and she eats right out of the palm of his hand.
She also endears herself to his brother by being much less horrified at the idea of rowdiness and her giddy excited air regarding the Zephyr. She takes them into the hanger where the old bird sits, dry docked with limp deflated balloons, and both she and Maxwell practically sigh in wonder. The ship looks fairly old and unimpressive to Wealwell but he’s never shared his brother’s passion for airships. Their Captain Dawderdale scampers off to prep the ship for departure and Maxwell leans towards him murmuring, “You’re so solid Wealwell, thank you.”
He seems much less grateful when helping Wealwell unload his things from the motor carriage.
“Why do you have so much luggage?”
Wealwell flicks a finger at Maxwell’s jacket disdainfully, “Are you planning on wearing one singular burgundy day suit this entire voyage?” He glances down to Maxwell’s shoes, black wingtips, sober and functional and not appropriate for every single occasion despite the way his brother insists on wearing them.
“That’s better than bringing your entire wardrobe with you!”
“This is hardly my entire wardrobe. It’s just the trunk, a couple of suitcases and a trifling amount of hat boxes. Besides, you can’t expect me to wear one pair of shoes, can you? Where are we going? What will the weather be like? You do know you need different shoes depending on the weather, yes? And the climate? Honestly, brother, it’s like you never listen to me about footwear!”
Maxwell’s grunt and eye roll as he wrestles Wealwell’s trunk up the gangplank indicate that once again, Wealwell’s brotherly wisdom is dissipating into the air rather then being taken in.
Despite the haggard appearance of the ship, Captain Dawderdale and her crew manage to inflate the balloons, lift the ship, and point the nose of their now skyworthy prize straight towards Pilby. As they rise above the clouds of Queen’s Smog, the clear air and gentle roll of the deck under his soles offers the perfect place to practice his dynamic poses.
In Gulch Canyon he promises to, “watch the ship with my very life.” After Maxwell leaves Wealwell has a nap in the captain’s quarter.
Maxwell does not return to The Zephyr with a farm or whatever it was Father wanted from Pilby. Instead, his brother returns with a young and befreckled rancher wearing muddy work boots, plain and functional save for the iridescent blue feathers tucked under the laces and the line of silver stars painted up the sides, a 12-foot-tall combat mech, shoeless, and the dustiest man Wealwell’s ever seen in his life. On his feet the man has well-worn leather boots, the colour of once bright red now a faded salmon pink. The old leather molds to his feet, the toes are pointed and the heels heavy and squared. He's bow legged with a mouthwatering sway to his legs.
“Dibs,” Wealwell declares.
“What?” Maxwell frowns at him but Wealwell can see the panic behind his eyes at losing out on dibs.
“Dibs,” Wealwell repeats arching his brow in the old cowboy’s direction. Maxwell’s eyes widen.
“That’s Daisuke Buckley,” Maxwell hisses quietly like he’s concerned someone would overhear. “You can’t dibs him!”
“Oh, brother, I most certainly can. And I have.” He turns a smug look to his brother. “And here I foolishly thought there would be nothing of note and wonder in Pilby. How wrong I was.”
“He’s so old!”
“Age, Maxwell, is how one makes a very fine cheese indeed.” When he looks back that fine wheel of cheese is squinting at him from across the ship. Wealwell flutters his lashes and shifts his hips into his most alluring of stances.
So begins a most elegant game of cat and mouse.
Their next stop is hours later, deep into the night and the Concentric Sea, to a point out between Hawk and Lewin on a tiny twisting island of metal and lights flickering in the downpour. He’s never been to Scrapslyvania as it’s said to be a thoroughly rough drinking place even by a rowdy standard so when the others depart Wealwell elects to stay behind and guard the ship once more. Besides it’s raining and his jacket is silk.
This time his brother returns with small gaunt woman shrunken into stained silks. Her boots, which quiver as she steps off the gangplank, are scuffed and uncared for with old paint splatters and dried glue dirtying the leather. Still his trained eyes can see that in their prime these boots would have been the most beautiful boots he has ever beheld. They have pointed toes, low heels, and blue-black leather with wire work, pipe work and gears welding along the sides and a thick mechanical plate over the entire soles.
He brings the boots up later while throwing together a cobb salad from the meager ship stores under her dark steady gaze. “Some remarkable boots you have there,” he declares casually.
“Oh, these old things,” she replies in a thick Scrapsi accent looking down at her own boots like she’s forgotten about them. “One of my early tinkering projects; they have taken me many places. Places where, had I been more humble, I would have not dared step.”
To have made such a pair of boots! Such artistry. “Mmm. Well, I can’t help but notice that they are looking somewhat scuffed and disheveled.”
“Yes. They are. Aren’t we all?” She stares down at the boots eyes far away, “Yet, somehow, beyond imagining they still work underneath the pain and ruin of time.”
“...Right. Well, I happen to have some wonderful boot polish with me.” He pulls out the tin and a soft cloth and holds them out to her. She doesn’t reach out to take them. “I can polish them for you?” he tries after a minute.
She squints at him distrustfully for a moment before giving him a tiny nod. “Yes. I will allow this. In exchange for this salad, I will allow you to polish these old boots of mine.”
Polishing the leather to bright luster as she enjoys the salad, Wealwell thinks to himself that this is the start of a beautiful friendship.
They’ve spent the last day and a half zipping around Gath on a stolen airship and finally dock in a place that Wealwell’s actually been to before, slumming it as they say, in his school days and once or twice in more recent years. The Uplands are a dangerous drinking hole filled with all manner of rogues but has proven to be the greatest place in all of Gath to uncover pirate tales.
This time Maxwell brings back their first practical crew member: a small man in charming spat boots to serve as a cook. He’s joined by a broad towering woman who, before her feet hit the deck, starts yelling at their crew. Her boots are worn but clearly cared for the rich chestnut brown faded to camel in some spots. They are very practical, very tough, and capped with brass plated toes. Respectable footwear but incredibly common. Her name turns out to be very interesting indeed.
“Chapman?” He repeats excitedly. “I must say, I’m absolutely dizzy with excitement! Did you know that a Chapman sailed with Goldbeard? Perhaps she has some family tales to share!”
Maxwell grabs his sleeve before he can cross the deck and reach her. “Please be cool, Wealwell. Please don’t talk to these people about pirates, ok please.”
Wealwell scoffs at his brother. “I dare say that every Chapman alive is a pirate. If she is, indeed, Vanellope Chapman then she must be the granddaughter of one of the most fearsome pirates to ever sail seven of the eight seas of Gath.”
“Alright, while that’s an interesting rumor—”
“It’s not a rumor! It is a fact. Oh, you think I don’t know pirate facts, Maxwell?”
“I’m sure you do! But I think, maybe now is not the time for that. What would be the most helpful would be if you…um checked to make sure Bert is settling in. Ok?”
“’Very well. I will make sure that the galley is ship shape.”’ But if his brother thinks this is the last Wealwell has to say about pirates then he is sorely mistaken.
Wealwell spends the next few hours in the galley picking over an app plate—the aioli dips are great but the onion rings and mozzarella sticks are honestly a little over done. But once they land in Bellnuit there’s no way to keep him on the ship. Especially not if they’re crashing a party at the Grand Congressional Hall.
It’s not the first party Wealwell’s crashed in Bellnuit but it’s the first party in all of Gath he’s ever crashed with Maxwell! And what fun to: there’s a champagne slide, beautifully dressed elites and at one point Marya shoots blunderbuss off like a real pip exhibiting an extreme level of rowdiness his younger brother seems to eagerly enjoy. All in all, a good show of a real cracking Bellnuit party.
What Wealwell doesn’t understand is why Maxwell is so insistent to have famed children’s author Montgomery LaMongommery return with them to the ship. True the man had written the book series Maxwell loved so as a child but the man was also wearing black velvet opera pumps trimmed with neat shiny bows. Lovely and expensive shoes, true, but only suitable for light waltzing.
At coat check, however, Montgomery changes out of the lovely party shoes into a pair of well fitted leather hiking boots. They sit tall, just below the knee, and have extraordinary flexible soles, moccasin soft, the perfect things for quiet careful steps and picking out paths in the wild.
Everything comes together when Wealwell sees these boots. He’s connected the dots!
Admittedly, he had been assuming Maxwell had just gone a little mad, that arguing with Father had tipped him into being a bit too rowdy. The family of one of Wealwell’s Biffmore chum’s had a sprawling old estate and, in the gardens, there was a beautiful folly built like an old Tressian temple. And in that folly, to the embarrassment of said chum, a great uncle lived, who despite having noble blood, enjoyed dressing up in a ragged toga and sorting acorns or whatever people in the past did. Normal crazy rich guy stuff. Wealwell had thought Maxwell was doing a little play acting of his own yadda yadda Wind Riders yadda yadda Zood yadda yadda adventure.
To think that instead, Maxwell had been putting together a team full of specialists: a wilderness guide, a sharpshooter, a mechanical genius, a brute mech fighter and, most importantly, a Chapman brimming with knowledge of sea and pirates.
It could not be clearer that they were about to undertake a great quest to seek pirate treasure. And not just any treasure but the one true treasure, treasure of treasures: Goldbeard’s Gold.
Jubilations abound. Wealwell was light headed with joy and slightly buzzed from champagne.
However, no sooner had they stepped upon the ship than they were met by a sudden ambush of Eisengeistian Brutes with a caustic man at their lead. His boots are tall and polished to a high shine, glossy beetle black, and monogrammed in gold, a pretentious sartorial choice that’s almost a decade out of style. He’s also talking directly to Maxwell in a rude familiar manner and mentioning Father and the theft of The Zephyr.
Wealwell cannot allow this adventure to end before it’s even begun!
Wealwell, knowing Maxwell's lack of social niceties, stands beside him and gives the interloping gentleman his coolest look paired with his most devastatingly aloof stance. “Sir, I thank you to kindly leave the ship.”
This doesn’t get the result he wants because Maxwell, obstinate little brother that he is, immediately pushes in front of Wealwell to continue his terse discussion with the man. As often happens when Maxwell tries diplomacy it quickly heats on his end. Shocking Wealwell not in the slightest, his white kid gloves come off in record time and his knuckles crack threateningly. All across the ship deck brute boots thud and before Wealwell can interject a second time a rough hand reaches out to grab his elbow.
“Mr. Gotch!” Coming up behind him Polaximus, one the Gotch family security guards, tightens her hand as she begins to drag Wealwell across the deck. “If you would just come with me for moment!”
“Excuse me?”
“Captain Dawderdale said I should get you and your brother off the deck,” she explains as they reach the galley door.
“Are we headed—aack!” The ship suddenly lurches under them in a violent buck. Before Wealwell can change his stance to brace, Polaximus falls dragging them both down through the door and sprawling onto the galley floor.
She scrambles up and back out the door. “I’m so sorry sir! Please stay in here where it’s safe. I’ll be right back with your broth—” She stops short on the last syllable staring back out at the deck in shock. “Holy moly! He just…picked up that guy and threw him overboard!”
Wealwell gets up and cranes to look over her shoulder just in time to see his brother, red faced and furious, reach for a hulking brute and with no hesitation hoist him up and over the side of the ship.
“Oh! Another one!” She turns back to Wealwell and gives him a bemused shrug. “Guess he’s ok,” she says before running off to join the crew opening the sails.
The chaos continues. The Zephyr slams into one of the many small ornithopters surrounding them, loud gunfire and Van's voice echoes out across the ship and Olethra slips into the galley through the window. She gives Bert and Wealwell a bright smile, asks “exciting right?”, before giving a wave and tiptoeing out the door.
Over all, it just seems like a big reaction when Wealwell’s pretty sure her Majesty’s Ministries of Deranged Science doesn’t have any jurisdiction in Bellenuit. On the other hand, he feels strangely proud of Maxwell who, for all his shocking violence and murder, is clearly a capable man. For so many years their father had sneeringly thrown rowdiness at Maxwell as the worst most base insult but here, on this ship, in this sky, Maxwell wears his rowdiness like a beautiful shoe with a solid grounding heel.
It's clear that Wealwell can trust in his brother and their new crew moving forward with this adventure.
***
Later, in the South Pole
Maybe, Wealwell has too high expectations for Maxwell. Perhaps he and this crew are not fit for treasure seeking. At least this is an idea Wealwell starts to ponder as he uses his best resistance stance so Maxwell doesn’t fall down a hole and die.
They didn’t even try to look for Goldberd’s cave! Absolutely abnormal behavior.
It's now clear that Wealwell is going to have to be the brains of the operation if they’re going to see any success.