It was mid-afternoon and Tarrus was packing his things, preparing to leave his shift for the day. The reception area was at a nice mid-day lull, having already seen off those parties who liked to get an early start on the day and those who had work outside town. Folks with jobs that required the light of the moon, hunting rare creatures, plants, or other esoteric reasons, had yet to be by today. Instead, the crowd right now was made up of those between jobs, either loafing about or idly browsing available work.
Tarrus yawned. Loafing about sounded particularly appealing today. After his extensive hike the other day he had been working hard at the problem of how he could amass the strength needed to fight his way through a Domain or, devastatingly, a Rupture.
Well, he’d only worked on that last one briefly. It didn’t take much thought or calculation to realize that he wouldn’t be able to take on the local Rupture, even if he had the strongest party currently in Gran behind him. They did venture into the place on occasion, but they rarely stayed long, and had certainly never challenged any Bosses. They likely could challenge stronger creatures, but they earned their place through cautious, carefully planned delves. They’d never take him in with them.
More than that, he’d never be able to afford them.
So thoughts about challenging the Rupture had been set aside. The Domain, however, was far from out of reach. A frequent challenge for intermediate parties, it had been considered a fairly sizeable challenge to take on, even before the recent discovery of a new mirror themed sub-Domain. The uncertainty about the place caused by this new discovery made him a bit wary, but he had some ideas to augment his fighting power that should help make up for his relatively low level. He just needed to find some adventurers to escort him– and the money to hire them.
“Ah! Why, if it isn’t the new party that’s the talk of the town!”
Tarrus’ ears perked up.
“My party was out on a job when you guys came through, I was so sad to hear I missed your discovery! Man, some of the veterans out here have been hounding me to know when they can take a look for themselves. I heard that rumours have already been making their way back South, so we might be seeing some more new faces around soon.”
He heard a light, awkward chuckle. “Well, I think the Guild still needs to send their official scouting party to confirm.”
Evie scoffed. “Bah, I heard about what Ragnar said too. Don’t pay any attention to him, he’s a rough, bitter man with a short temper. Besides,” she said, dropping her volume conspiratorially, “the Guild Master’s been making moves that make it pretty clear the scouting is more of a formality. That’s more than enough confirmation for most.”
“Anyway,” she said in her regular tone, “what can I do for you today?”
“We wanted to register with the Guild as an official party!”
“Oh, you weren’t already?” Evie said curiously. Tarrus had also assumed them to be an official party. Tarrus leaned around the corner to get a look at them. “Well, we can get that taken care of, no problem. What’s the name you’ve chosen?” she asked, pulling forms from her desk.
Annette cringed, while the others grinned. “Tea Party!”
“Tea Party?” Evie asked, a playful note entering her tone. “What’s the story behind that?”
Nina pushed her way to the front, holding Annette’s hand in the air. “Annette makes tea and snacks for us, and it’s very tasty!” With her free hand, Annette did her best to cover her red cheeks.
The part-time receptionist nodded solemnly as she filled out their paperwork. “Mmm, of course. Truly a fearsome name.” Cracking a grin, she chuckled. “Actually, I’ve always been a fan of having ‘fun’ names for parties. I got outvoted, and now I’m stuck in the ‘Wild Winds’. Ugh!” She pulled a face. “Boring.”
Gerald’s brows rose. “The Wild Winds, eh? From what I’ve heard of you lot, it’s an appropriate name, at least.”
Evie looked surprised at that. “Oh? You’ve heard of us? I wouldn’t have imagined our name was well known outside of Gran.”
He stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Well, this would have been several years ago now… I seem to recall a tale about a young new archivist nearly being blown off a cliff by his adventurer escort, the poor lad.”
She started sputtering, red in the face, and Gerald just laughed. “I uhh… I need to file this now!” She hastily gathered up the forms, and turned to retreat before startling. “Oh, Tarrus! You’re still here. Can you cover the desk for a bit?”
“Very well, O Wildest of Winds.” He smirked. She bumped him on her way out.
He walked up to the Tea Party, noting their young leader’s apprehension, and returned Annette’s little wave.
“How can I help you?”
-=-<^>-=-
After setting the party up with information on The Chasm, the lowest level Domain in the region, as well as current open jobs related to the Domain and the surrounding area, Tarrus watched them go thoughtfully.
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
A prior connection. A capable intermediate level party. Not particularly punchable. They could work.
He sighed as he shouldered his backpack, heading out of the reception building for the day. Now, I just need to see about increasing my own power, and funding.
He still wasn’t sure what to do to secure enough money to hire an entire party of adventurers. In his past life he’d suffered two extremes: truly desperate poverty, and cataclysmic wealth that appeared as easily as waving his staff. He’d never really learned how to live in the averages of society.
He shook his head. I can worry about that later. Worst case, I find a way to start taking on jobs at the Guild. For now, I just need to head to the scriptorium. He picked up his pace, navigating through the Guild compound towards the craft quarter.
Occupying what would have once been the most essential structures of the town when it was nothing more than a waystation, the local Guild had everything within its walls that it needed to function, and more. The craft quarter, visited only occasionally by adventurers, was one of the most economically valuable sections of the compound. All materials turned into the Guild, either through the completion of jobs or independent sale, went through this quarter for processing.
With few local businesses to outsource to, and with the general lack of population in Gran, adventurers who worked primarily as crafters were paid a premium to ply their trade here. While not common, it wasn’t unheard of to have artisans seeking to hone their craft by joining up with a party in a support position. For the brave, it cut out any middleman in sourcing materials, and placed those with business savvy in the midst of their customer base.
Tarrus had been here often himself. At first, he came just to analyze enchanted items, but lately he’d taken an interest in learning the basics of enchantment. While the craft quarter in general was less populated, the scriptorium rarely saw traffic through its doors.
He pushed open the doors to the building, relishing in the quiet, and the low pulse of ambient mana from the tools. Taking a relaxing breath, letting the tension out of his body, he looked around. The scriptorium was equipped with a variety of tools, but only a few were of importance to him today.
Most familiar to him, at the end of a jointed, mechanical arm affixed to the ceiling were a series of viewing lenses used to enhance one's ability to see the mana matrix of an enchantment. He found he needed this device more than he would have in his past life, but only to visualize the structure of the enchantment; when actually interacting with an item using his own mana senses, pushing threads of mana into magic tools, he could come to a clearer understanding of the structure of the working than using the lens.
Less familiar, though more important for today's experiments, were the quill and its ink. Though, ‘quill’ as a name for the tool was somewhat of a holdover from early enchanting practice. Where once enchanters would use unwieldy and wasteful implements to scribe their magic into inert materials, modern enchanting made use of specially constructed fine point pens, with removable and standardized inkwells that fit into the frame of the device.
The inkwells, reusable glass canisters, were themselves enchanted, purpose built to hold enchanting ‘ink’, which was simply condensed mana. The entire theory behind modern enchanting was built on fairly simple principles. As objects accrue mana, they become more powerful. One could simply infuse something with mana and it would become a more powerful version of itself, its existence becoming better defined. However, if you instead implant structured mana that directs the process, the benefits are far greater.
This is the process that Tarrus was here to attempt today. He pulled a notebook out of his bag, flipping it open and setting it beside his workstation. Beside it, he set a small stack of paper, cut into narrow strips. Not having anyone to teach him basic enchantments, he’d gone through the Guilds collection of common enchanted items, analyzing them and attempting to transcribe the structures contained within. He had a few effects written down that should be easy enough to test, even when applied to a different material.
Pulling a strip off his stack of paper, he carefully aligned it on his workstation, and pinned it in place to keep it still. Checking the well already in his quill, he set spare ink on his other papers, both ready and waiting for their turn. Flipping his book to the first test enchantment, he carefully leaned forward, and began…
-=-<^>-=-
Several Hours Later
Carefully, gently, he moved his hand to close out a particularly important circle on a rune, sweat dripping from his brow. He made sure to keep his wrist still, that had messed him up on a few before, and–
His hand slipped.
“AGHH!” Crying out in frustration, he tore the strip he was working on in half and pushed away from the table, pacing.
Enchanting was much harder than he’d expected.
Sitting beside his workstation, he now had several different piles of paper. There were the strips that had been successfully enchanted, those that had failed because he messed up, those that failed for reasons he didn’t know, and now those that had been torn to shreds.
Soon, he stopped pacing and looked over his work, holding his aching wrist all the while. All he’d succeeded in making were some enchantments to cast light, make the enchanted material harder, sharper, or emit flame. The ashes of that last one had long been discarded, and its brethren had been separated from the rest, just to be safe.
Sighing, he traced the shape of the enchantment he had been attempting on this last one. A simple, short duration levitation, it was, in principle, supposed to work in a similar way to the fire enchantment. Convert mana within the object into a type of energy, and expel it. The flame enchantments worked, but this one hadn’t and he wasn’t sure why yet.
He shook his head. I’ve spent too much time on this. I’m not going to figure it out today, at least. Yawning, he packed up and tidied his station, making sure everything was stocked for more tests tomorrow. He left, mind still idly working at the problem.
-=-<^>-=-
Alfred clapped his hands twice, producing short, powerful bursts of noise. The party assembled around him quickly settled down, all still in varying stages of preparation for their job. Contrary to their usual behavior, during work his team gave him as much respect as a party leader could ask for.
“At this point, you should all be intimately familiar with the details of the report we’ve received. Our goal, first and foremost, is to confirm the existence of an unmapped sub-Domain in The Ruined Manor. Second, to map as much of said sub-Domain as we can. Third, to confirm the nature of the Boss within. This is not a mission to find new loot. We can do that when not acting in an official capacity. We leave in the morning. Pack accordingly.” Piece said, he went back to his own preparations.
The speech was a formality. He trusted his team, and this wasn’t their first survey. It wasn’t their first, but the thrill never got old. He shared a grin with his friends as they looked forward to the delve.