Adventuring work is hard and tedious. While your carbuncle whom you have affectionately named ‘Brick’ is able to help, most of the workload falls to you for meager sums of gil. The guild provides the basic things you need to work there free of charge-- namely ink, paper, and a place to rest, but it falls to you and you alone to acquire the money you need for food and other supplies.

You do want to emphasize that only the basic supplies you need are provided. More robust ink, including the enchanted kind that K’yoko was raving to you about, is not cheap. You can make good gil through the adventurer’s guild, provided you’re willing to risk life and limb for it, but when you’re just starting out…it can be tough to strike a balance.

A lot of your early, consistent pay would come from working in Wineport as a fruit picker since it was prime season for harvesting. It didn’t pay much, but it was easy enough, and the people who worked with you were kind and helpful. Your only coworker, your beloved Erden, teaches you how to check if they’re ready for harvest with a simple taste test, and shows you how to do the pruning properly.

Much later, they teach you how to make the wine from the ingredients you were previously harvesting, and that comes with a big pay spike too! This is how you also learn that Erden’s family owns this particular farm, when you meet his mother Cota Kha. She tells you how their family moved from the Azim Steppe to Wineport just before Erden was born, and they’ve remained here ever since. She is fairly eccentric, but her kindness shines clearly through her actions. Erden himself seems a bit embarrassed by her, but tries not to let it show.

His father, Nekun, is rarely on the farm itself. Instead, he spends his time in Limsa serving as a Yellowjacket marauder. At first you were intimidated by the idea of him, but when you actually meet him you learn he’s more of a dork than a fearsome warrior, similar to his son.

Erden clearly puts in a lot of effort to connect with you on a personal level, which surprises you. You weren’t expecting to make much in the way of ‘friends’ on a job like this, but you find your time in Wineport to be extremely good, especially compared to some of the…other jobs you pick up. The two of you spend more and more time together gradually, and it eventually escalates into small dates. You wouldn’t call them that for quite some time, but at the end of the day that’s what they were.

You (very romantically) frequent the Libraries of Limsa together, Vylbrand’s best…and only? Place to study magic. While you primarily are investigating curative and defensive magicks, his attention is held by thaumaturgy. You were never really a thaumaturge yourself, but you did pick up on some basics from Mizu. You write her a letter asking for some basic tips along with any tomes that the thaumaturge’s guild can spare.

When she gets back to you, she has included thirty-seven pages of extremely detailed diagrams of her biggest, most powerful spells. This comes along with two tomes on basic thaumaturgy that she requests you return when you are finished with them, as she did not actually ask for permission to lend you them.

When you ask Erden about his progress with the spellwork a few weeks later, he says that he lost interest in the art, but thanks you for the help. Despite this loss of interest, he still accompanies you occasionally to your guild to read up with you. His company is perfect-- he is quiet and just as focused on study as you are, and it doesn’t ever feel awkward to share the room with him either.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Back at the guild, you learn small updates about your roommates' ventures. Mina has begun making startling discoveries regarding Nym, where many of her excursions have caused her to notice strange, small green creatures called Tonberries. As the lake around the large Nymian palace has drained slowly, it has allowed her and her team to go deeper and deeper.

Vincent returns with some information from Gridania, regarding the latest in conjury. He gives them to you almost immediately, and some of the techniques he has recorded helps you make sense of the more complex healing magic recorded in the library.

With it, you make good progress on your spellwork, trying your best to create an equivalent to Clemency in your grimoire. You manage to find a work-around-- while you simply can’t fit the amount of aether required for its power into the page, you can make a spell of equal potency spread over a longer period. By the time you are done, you have crafted a spell which is all your own, and name it Rejuvenate. It entails a moderate burst of healing, followed by a slow regen over time.

When you show Thubyrgeim, she is overtaken with joy, and asks a big favor from you. The arcanist’s guild, while it does have funding, does not have nearly the amount the other guilds have been allotted due to a lack of definitive usefulness. While arcanists are able to work on the battlefield, they are often looked down upon compared to the more readily available marauder.

Marauders are easier to train, generally can handle more hits, and very importantly are effective without use of aether or much education. She impresses that if you are able to design useful enough spells and prove to the rest of the world the value of arcanistry, that they may get additional funding for more books, better ink, and other useful items for the guild-- you need only show members of The Maelstrom their potential. While you have never been big on performances, you agree, and are signed up for a short demonstration on its practicality in a sparring match next week.

Later that day, K’yoko finally meets Brick, and immediately asks why you named him that. You have to explain how it’s the perfect name, but even after a lengthy discussion she is not convinced. Regardless, she loves him all the same, and introduces him to her own emerald carbuncle, which she has been struggling to come up with a name for.

While picking fruit and brewing wine is fun and everything, the work isn’t quite enough on its own to make month’s end, so you end up having to continue picking up odd jobs here and there to stay comfortably afloat.

One particularly memorable event involved enlisting your protection as a ‘bodyguard,’ where a midlander Hyur woman requested your escort and protection during a trade to make sure nothing went awry. You accepted it expecting it to be mostly protection from any beasts on the road, but it evolved into much more than that.

The roads themselves were fairly empty as the trade happened later into the night. Most critters were asleep, but those that were seeking to cause trouble were no match for your magical force, especially since Brick made it so you didn’t have to worry about your own safety while casting.

The trade is interrupted by a tall Au Ra man fully clad in gold and black armor who seeks to claim your contractor’s life. He tries to reason with you, saying she has been smuggling Somnus, a highly addictive drug, into Limsa and selling them to the city’s youth to get them hooked on it for life. She does not deny the allegations, but insists that you hold up your end of the deal, which you begrudgingly do.

The man is furious with you, asking how you could ever protect such a monster. You ready your tome and keep quiet. You don’t enjoy protecting monsters, but you really need the money. She hides closely behind you and Brick, ready to run should it come to that.

The assailant draws a massive claymore from his back and readies himself, but doesn’t seem to be able to work up the nerve. He strikes the ground and unleashes a torrent of darkness to obscure himself from vision, and when it fades he has vanished. You are paid and you move on, though even after reporting her to the authorities you note that she is not arrested or searched.

A few days later, she is found dead on the lower decks.