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Without further ado, you scooped Taylor up onto your shoulders and beckoned for Mary to follow you. Florian was picked up alongside the rest of your possessions, and the four of you started towards the wharf's bridge.
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It took long enough to find Steele and Andrew that the sky had turned cloudy.
You finally found your companions by the capitol, being led to them by Indiana after the mole had sniffed you out a block away. The eager mole had offered a claw for you to grab as he led you down the dirty Sacramento streets, through narrow sidewalks and cramped buildings covered in soot and swarmed by strangers, away from the crowd and noise into a small alleyway that opened up into the grand parliamentary square.
Now, the three of you stood on an enormous field of green, slightly desaturated by the darker sky above, on the most distant parts of the capitol lawn. Instead of turning your attention to the overwhelming mass of domed white providence in the background and the endless rigid paths pouring out in front of it, the three of you focused on each other.
Steele was even giddier than normal. "Buchanan! It's good to see you again! You won't believe my serendipity! Apparently, gold stocks are on the decline..."
Andrew was leaning on Dora, Buckwheat on his other side, his expression more exhausted than you'd seen him in some time. "Of course they are, old man. This recession's hittin' everyone."
You chimed in with a hand in your pocket. "So you've been short-changed?"
Steele shook his head so much his cheeks flung back and forth. "No, no! Quite the opposite, in fact! I got out <span class="mu-i">just before</span> I've heard things are going to crash! I would have, indubitably, earned more had we gotten here earlier. That is simply a given!" You frowned a bit before he continued. "But, regardless of our tardiness, I have checked out MORE than enough to make back my investment! And, Buchanan, I must thank you incredibly for helping me get here!"
The man leapt for your free left hand, shaking it hard with both of his own before you could even register that he'd done so. "This fortune could last us years out in the countryside if ever we were to be so misfortunate! My trip home will be effortless!"
He kept going on and on about the benefits for a while. It was hard not to catch his infectious excitement, but you'd only noticed when Andrew asked. "What're you smilin' about?"
"Oh, uh, 'm jus' happy for Steele ah think. Aren't you?"
Andrew chuckled. You couldn't tell whether it was a happy chuckle or a tired chuckle. "Ah think ah'd be a lot happier if ah hadn't had to hear all this for hours before he got that fortune've his. He's been goin' on like this since the moment you left."
