Adventures of a Scribe

by Michael Deyhim

  “Six fish, two for each of us. That should get us an extra two days.” Bran said when he was finished. He had to go fishing three more times in order to get us enough food to make it. When the capital was in sight he muttered a prayer of thanks that the mission would finally be done with.

  We came up to the gate and the guards gave a look at the wheel barrow. I had dug out the mission parchment that morning and held it up for them to see. They all looked at the cockatrice a bit confused. “We need to keep the monsters out. I don’t want to be fighting that thing when it breaks loose.”

  “But it is in a cage and tied up. Also we can’t stop a sanctioned mission.” Another guard said.

  The arguments kept going back and forth until someone went to get the Commander for this gate. An older man came out of the gate house and walked over to us. He looked at the monster and then at our parchment. “You and you, escort them to the Alchemists Guild. They can pass.” With that we went through the gate house into Antioch.

  The soldiers took us to the guild hall and we went inside. The two guards left after we entered. The atrium was richly decorated, showing clear signs of wealth. Paintings and tapestries adorned the walls. “What do you two want?” A young woman looked at us in disgust from behind a large counter.

  I pulled out the mission parchment. “This mission.” I said. She looked at the cage and then us.

  “You are in no state to meet with a Master Alchemist, you need to clean up a bit first.” I just looked at her.

  “Listen shit face. Getting this stupid thing here has been a pain. If you don’t get someone with more brains than you I am going to kill it and tell my guild how your guild is a piece of shit and we won’t work with you anymore. Probably won’t happen, but it will piss a lot of people off and get you in trouble. So shut up and do your job.”

  “Guards.” She called out. “These two are threatening me.” Four burly looking men came into the room.

  “We aren’t. Just telling her to get someone in charge since we completed a mission.” I held up a piece of parchment showing it. “Now we are here on official business and I don’t care what we look like.” The room was quiet as both sides glared at each other.

  “Remove them, take that thing as payment for giving me trouble.” The woman gestured at the wheel barrow with our cage and cockatrice. I drew my blade.

  “The first one to touch me or that monster is dead, that is my word as a mage.” The guards stopped advancing. Bran also drew his sword. “Just get someone more important than shit face.” I said while gesturing at the woman.

  “How dare you! I am-“

  “I don’t care who you are, do your job or shut up. She is an idiot.” I said the last bit to the guards and saw two of them grin.

  “Kill them!” She screamed. Still no one moved and she kept screaming death threats.

  “What is all the racket?” An older looking man came into the room. Everyone started talking at once. “Silence! You first.” He pointed at the woman.

  “These two vagrants came in here and demanded to see a Master Alchemist. They are clearly troublemakers and I called the guards. They then drew their weapons and threatened to use mana against me.”

  “Alright and now you.” He gestured at me.

  “We have a mission from your guild. To deliver a map and that. Here is the mission parchment. Shit face there told us we needed new clothes and then called in guards after I refused to leave. She then ordered them to attack us and I held them off with the threat of using mana. I am a registered mage.” I said.

  The old man let out a sigh. “Miss Goldenfich, please remember that we get all sorts here. Adventurers tend to be a bit rough around the edges. Next time just get a Master and don’t make a fuss. Now everyone put away your weapons and you two come with me. Bring the cockatrice as well.” We followed the old man through a couple of hallways to room with a pit with a cage over it.

  “Can you help put the monster in there?” He asked. It was a simple matter of untying it and tossing it in. “Excellent, we have been needing one for a while. Now come with me and we can sort out the payment.” We followed him to an office, Bran brought the wheel barrow and cage with us.

  “I also have this map.” I handed over a piece of parchment detailing where the nest was. “There were two other baby cockatrices there.”

  “Hmmm, maybe another expedition in the spring. Well I don’t mind. Getting the cockatrice this soon is excellent.” He went into his desk and pulled out a small pouch and a single gold coin. “Twenty silver and one gold. Now just wait a minute while I write out a note for your guild. Nothing bad, just saying you did quite well.” He sealed the parchment with some wax and a ring he was wearing.

  With that completed we left with huge grins. We quickly sold the wheel barrow and cage for forty copper to someone on the street. Less than what they were worth, but it didn’t matter now since we were rich. We made our way to the shops where we had gotten clothes before. We purchased new clothing and then made our way to one of the nicer inns.

  It cost four silver but was worth every bit. A haircut, bath, large dinner, and the comfy beds. I felt clean for the first time in forever. We had a nice breakfast and then we made our way to our guild hall.

  “Still here?” I saw the same woman as before. “What exactly did you do?”

  “Punched an idiot for asking idiot questions. Now what do you two want?”

  “Mission completion.” I held up the parchments.

  “Huh, just make your way upstairs.”

  We made our way up to the Mission Completion room. The same old man was there surrounded by parchment. “Yes?”

  “These two missions.” I handed over the parchments. “Also a note to pass on.”

  “You owe eighty copper from the caravan and four silver from the mapping.” He said and then opened up the note. “You also captured one. So twenty four silver and eighty copper.” I handed over the gold piece and was sad to see it go. He put it in his desk and quickly pulled out a pouch and tossed some copper into it.

  “Already pre-counted for seventy five silver. Good job, nice to see young folks working hard.” He said.

  “Yeah, it was definitely hard-“

  “I am old and don’t have time to listen, get out.” That was a quick change of attitude but we left and went to find Hilda.

  “So you two are back?” She said looking at us.

  “Yeah, common room for two, ten-days.” It was tempting to get something nicer but I wanted to save money instead of spending it all.

  “Successful mission?” She asked.

  “Yeah, it went well.” Bran said.

  “If you have a lot of money, the guild can hold onto for you. Fresh clothes and smelling nice. You clearly just had a good mission and decided to celebrate. This old lady has been around for a while. Second floor, room labeled Savings. Now that is an eighty copper each for those beds.” After paying her we made our way back to the second floor and found the room.

  I knocked on the door. “Come in.” A voice called out. We both entered. The room was completely plain except for a large steel door embedded into a stone wall. If I had to guess that was the tower attached to the guild hall and I noted a number of runes carved on the door. The man was middle aged and well dressed, sitting behind an almost barren desk.

  “I am Murdoc and my guess is that you want to store some coin?” He asked.

  “Yes, how does it work?” I asked. I knew my parents kept a secure room to house the money they made. This was probably similar but for the entire guild.

  “Quite simple. You can store twenty five silver at a time and the guild takes one silver as payment. Whenever you want money you can withdraw as little as a silver to your entire account, no charge. You also will write a will, a document saying who gets your money if you die. If you don’t write a will the guild will keep it.” Murdoc explained.

  “What is to keep you from running off with our money?” Bran asked.

  “Trust. The
re are a large number of protections on the vault, but it is trust between you and the guild in the end. Our senior members keep upwards of a hundred gold each here. There are other services we offer once you have more than ten gold pieces stored.” Murdoc said.

  “Can we store seventy five silver but spilt it between the two of us?” I asked.

  “Unusual, but not a problem. That would leave thirty six in each account and three as a fee.” We gave our names and handed over the silver. I willed for mine to be left to my two brothers. Bran did the same thing listing out his family. I split up the remainder of the coin between the two of us and we left the room.

  “So much money…” Bran said.

  “Huh, yeah.” We went downstairs and cleaned out our packs.

  “I forgot about these.” Bran held up a cockatrice feather he had stored in the bottom of his pack.

  “Got something there?” A man walking by asked and looked over.

  “Cockatrice feathers.” Bran said.

  “They sell about five copper each to an alchemist.” The man said giving them a look.

  “That much?” Bran asked.

  “Well, maybe, maybe not. Depends on quality, age, and so on. Try the Brews shop past the plaza and towards the Alchemists Guild.”

  “Thanks, I’m Bran, this is Ed.” I gave a friendly wave and noted he was also rank two. A bit older than us but still a teen.

  “Carl, so just get back?” He sat at the other end of the wood bed from Bran.

  “Yeah. Don’t like the snow, that is for sure.” Bran said.

  “Tell me about it. That is why I spend winter here and do caravan duty the rest of the year. Not a lot of money but the odd job during the winter helps.”

  “You don’t go on other missions?” I asked.

  “Hah, no. There are two types of adventurers. The lazy kind like me who just like to relax and enjoy life. By the time I get older I will be rank three and be able to retire and manage a guild hall. Then you got the people who like excitement all the time and take the harder missions. Most of those people die, but the rare few make it to rank four and even rarer rank five.”

  “Don’t get me wrong it is fairly boring, but I also run errands. Those are simple missions. Get paid a couple of silver to deliver some ones will, take a message somewhere, and other things like that. I am the kind of person that keeps things running around the guild. If I get really lucky I might get a reserved spot on the upper floors, but normally those go to retired rank fours.”

  “Never thought about retirement.” I said. I wanted to live forever, but I wasn’t about to tell people that. I also had never really considered what other adventurers did when they got older.

  “That is why you will end up rank four probably. You are still young. After your party gets killed off then you will understand. It is hard to come back from that.” Carl said.

  “Hear any news about an expedition to Gilleth?” Bran asked.

  “Yeah, that is happening in about three ten-days when winter breaks. Two thousand soldiers at least from what I heard. A lot of people are already planning to go in with the army. Mostly scouting and harassment. I wouldn’t recommend going. I went on one before and the mana those mages start throwing around is insane, since they all combine their efforts.”

  “We have friends out that way, just wondering if they are okay.” Bran said.

  “Oh that is easy enough to check. Room on the second floor where everyone’s medallion is registered. If you die, the medallion turns gray and then crumbles to dust a couple days later.” Carl said.

  “Really?” I asked.

  “Yep, that is how they keep track who is in the guild and who is dead.” We finished going through our packs and then followed Carl up to the second floor. The room was labeled Active Members.

  We went in and an older man looked up at Carl. “Carl, good to see you. What brings you up here?”

  “They wanted to check on their friends.” Carl said.

  “Ah, of course. Their full names.”

  “George Fullbent, Falkerk Rosen, Maxen Horn, Devon, and Smert Saln.” I said.

  “Just check the walls, Carl knows how things are ordered.” We looked over the walls and found the medallions for everyone but Falkerk Rosen. He went back to the old man and there was a sinking feeling in my gut.

  “Hmm, he died seventy two days ago.” The old man replied after looking in a large book on his desk.

  “Sorry about that.” Carl said.

  “He was a good person.” Bran whispered. We left the room and went to have some dinner and a strong drink. We were sitting in silence when Carl spoke up.

  “It is tough. My first group is all dead. Thought we could take on a wyrnn. It was a complete disaster. Beth, now she was a great shot. She died first. The monster swooped in and bit off her head. Terrance was next. He was in love with her you see, well more than the rest of us. The tail shattered his back. He lay there chocking in his own blood for the rest of the fight.”

  “I will admit I pissed myself then. I didn’t run but I was scared out of wits. I managed to sink a single arrow into its leg. The wyrnn didn’t like that and a blast of air from its wings sent me tumbling down some rocks and unconscious. When I woke up, the other three members of my group were dead. Don’t know what happened to them, but they were probably eaten.” He took a look drink from his mug. The mood was somber after that.

  CHAPTER 6

  I spent the rest of my time going to the library and practicing the Chant of Time. It finally paid off when it became Experienced at the end of the two ten-days. I worked out the chant and learned stop. It would completely freeze something in place for a single second. With this I could target a weapon and cause an enemy to lose his grip or disorient them as everything seemed to leap forward by a second. The thing that was stopped was also immune to damage. So I wouldn’t be able to stop something and kill it in that state.

  While I could use slow on a weapon, it wasn’t sudden enough to break ones grip. I had experimented with this and it was always better to target the monster or person rather than the weapon itself. For something like the yeti, stop would have been helpful. I tried it on myself and I couldn’t tell I had been stopped. There was no blackness or loss of time.

  If I didn’t know I had cast the spell and was paying attention to minor things that were moving about it could have been easy to mark it as a mental distraction. It was more expensive in terms of mana, but I was pleased just to be making some progress. It also made whatever was stopped invulnerable as far as I could tell. If I had sank my sword into the yeti and used stop on the sword it might have cut itself apart.

  I had kept placing points into wisdom, letting the other ones level up naturally. My mana was the key to all my fights and I wanted as much as possible. I still had not figured out how to recover mana more quickly and I despaired of ever finding an answer.

  This was the morning we were going to look into another mission. Bran had purchased a new shield and sword. He had also purchased two health potions for himself after telling him I would charge him two silver a potion if he didn’t buy some and got injured. It seemed almost silly not to keep a couple of them on hand, but the price was prohibitive. I was tempted to buy a mana potion but ten silver was way too much.

  We stared at the mission board. “Nothing really that great up here.” I said.

  “I was asking around, apparently there are some slimes coming out of the swamp to the south past Azalon.” I looked at Bran

  “No, just…no. No swamps. What about a bounty?” I asked.

  “Can you track or have some mana to do it?”

  “No…” I mumbled out.

  “Having trouble?” Carl came up and asked.

  “Nothing good is up here. Some action, but not in a shit hole.” Bran said.

  “It is tough when you are rank two, no guarding some nobles while they poke around ruins.” Carl said.

  “I know, that actually looked interesting. This one then.” I pointed
at a request.

  Rank Two, Open

  A detailed map is needed of the goblin settlements in Gellith Forest by mid-spring.

  Posted by Royal Army

  Reward: 2 Silver per settlement mapped out

  “Goblins, really? Bran asked.

  “We did well enough before. Plus with my map making skills it shouldn’t be that bad. I figure we sneak up to the top of the mountain in the center of the forest and I can draw out the whole thing easily.” I said.

  “That is where they are all camped out, in the ruins there.” Bran replied.

  “Well the ruins are at the base of the mountain. I figure there are at least thirty surrounding settlements, probably more. Also we never saw settlements high up on the mountain.” I said. Carl just looked at me and shook his head.

  “That is definitely a rank four attitude.” He said.

  “You really think that we can get through all of them?” Bran asked.

  “If not we just turn back. It is listed as open, so no worry if we fail. They are probably hoping they get a bunch of maps to compare.” I said.

  “Alright, but if this goes badly I am blaming you.” Bran said. We looked for a caravan headed out that way but there was nothing.

  “Good luck you two.” Carl said. We gave our goodbyes and set off.

  “So why did you really want to do this?” Bran asked.

  “I am actually kind of curious about how everyone is doing. We know they are alive, but did they stick around Jopel?”

  “Money would be tough, but they might be able to handle it. Thank the Gods, we won’t have to worry about that for a while.”

  “Yeah, so you want to see something really amazing with mana?” I asked as we exited the capital.

  “What?” Bran said while giving me a worried look. I picked up a pebble and tossed it in the air.

  “Stop.” It froze in place. Bran reached out to poke it but the mana wore off and it fell.

  “Huh, that is pretty cool.”

  “I was just thinking and I figured I could use it on weapons so people would drop them but then I realized something. I stop something in the air and people run into it like my sword, but I could use other things.” I said.