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After another restful night in a cozy bed, Janus found himself even more invigorated than he had anticipated. He had gone straight to his room, packing his belongings away, and was asleep soon after. When he woke, it was still too early for his meetup time with Tara and Rowan. Thankfully, he had an errand to run in the meantime.
His top priority was fixing his robe, even though his funds were depleted from the previous night's events.
The ground level of the guild contained a small tailor’s shop. Janus discovered that shops sponsored by the guild were willing to take a portion of his reward from any writs he completed in exchange for services.
The price came out to be a little more than what it would have been if Janus paid up front, but the robe was his only enchanted layer of protection. He didn’t want to risk heading back into the tunnels without it.
After Janus signed a stack of paperwork, the tailor informed him that it could take up to a week for the repairs to be completed. Janus didn’t really have any context for low long repairing an enchantment would take, so he could only nod his head and accept the wait.
As he perused the guild commons, Tara materialized beside him, quickly resuming her role as Janus's guide to Bear Station. At the mention of his robe, her expression soured.
“You let them garnish your writ rewards? That stuff is a scam. You’ll end up paying way more that way,” said Tara.
“I wanted to make sure I had my robe for our first job. It’s the only protection I’ve got,” replied Janus.
“Yeah, well, I’ll help you figure out another way if something like this happens again.”
Tara led Janus on a tour, showcasing the process of selecting a writ from the notice boards lining the far wall of the commons area. These boards predominantly featured straightforward tasks, prompting Janus's surprise at spotting requests for delvers to accomplish mundane tasks, such as moving heavy objects. Some of the writs even called for cleaning services.
It was a departure from his usual fantasies about the life of a delver. He’d never read a book where a delver was hired to clean someone’s room, or move a dresser.
When he asked Tara about the strange writs, she explained that they meant very heavy objects. Stuff that most non combat classes would struggle with. Usually they were industrial jobs, paid out by the station governor. She continued to explain that the guild in Bear Station differed from some of the other guilds, especially the guild in Eagle Station. Instead, the delvers of Bear Station focused on improving life for station citizens wherever they could.
Janus assumed it was probably more about the money from extra jobs, but kept quiet. Tara had seemed particularly prickly about the Eagle Station guild, and he didn’t want to open a can of worms.
Unfortunately, Tara continued, explaining that the guild in Eagle Station was more focused on the prestige of delving. They were more concerned with taking down the biggest possible dungeons and finding the rarest items. But Tara claimed that it was mostly a front. In her opinion, Eagle Station delvers were more interested in appearances, rather than actually getting work done.
Janus wasn’t sure if he agreed, exactly. He had a preference for Bear Station, but delvers were a benefit to the stations regardless of what guild they frequented. And, obviously, delvers from Bear Station wanted some prestige, too. He kept his opinion to himself.
Rowan showed up a few minutes later, saving Janus from Tara’s ranting.
“Sorry I’m a bit late guys,” the [Trickster] said. He was already sipping on a drink. Janus assumed it was some sort of alcohol.
“You weren’t late enough to pick up something to drink on the way, I see,” said Tara. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. I just got finished giving Janus the rundown of the guild. I was thinking we could check the notice boards for a quick job.”
“Oh right, you mentioned the notice boards were only for simple jobs?” asked Janus.
“I guess it depends on how you look at it.” Tara shrugged. “Some of those notice board jobs can get a little crazy. But, if you want the real deal payouts, you check the Bingo Book. Well, that’s what delvers call it. I think it has a boring official name like the guild ledger, I don’t know. We call it the Bingo Book because every job has a ton of requirements. If you manage to meet all of them, well, BINGO!”
“Yeah, that last job was a bingo for us. And we didn’t even have to do any of the work,” said Rowan.
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Janus was unsure. “Should we check the Bingo Book then?”
“We can take a look, sure. I mean, no offense, Janus, but we probably won’t hit a bingo with a brand-new member. We’re gonna have to get you some job history,” Rowan explained.
The group continued talking as they approached the clerks. Tara asked for the “Bingo Book” and Janus watched as they pulled a massive tome from behind the counter and slammed it down on the desk. The sound rang out through the commons.
“It’s theatrical, ya’ know? Like ‘Ooh look at them, they’re lookin’ at the book’ kinda thing,” said Rowan.
Inside, the book was a lot less interesting than Janus would have hoped. Each page was actually a sleeve that could hold up to two cards. And the book appeared to only have about a dozen cards inside. All the other pages held empty sleeves.
Tara shrugged after Janus mentioned the empty pages.
“There aren’t a lot of jobs at the moment. When a job is completed, they remove it from the book. Some of these jobs are even shared between the stations, so you can kind of get an idea how big of a deal the Bingo Book is.”
The cards within the book had details for various different jobs and the requirements to meet with the job issuer. However, many of the tasks lacked specifics. The clerks explained that most details in the Bingo Book were kept secret until a team accepted a job.
Unfortunately, Rowan was correct in assuming that their team wouldn’t qualify for a job from the Bingo Book. Almost every job required each delver in the team to have completed dozens of high-end writs. Even Tara and Rowan qualified for only a single card.
“I guess we should look at the notice board,” said Janus. He was mildly disappointed.
Let’s not get too enthusiastic about jumping into danger.
-
The notice board encompassed a large swath of the guild’s northern wall. Janus noticed that the jobs steadily increased in danger and difficulty as he moved further to the right of the board. The jobs near the left rarely involved any sort of combat, while those furthest to the right were almost guaranteed some amount of danger.
Tara immediately gravitated to the far right and Rowan rolled his eyes, beckoning for Janus to head further left.
“She’ll try to find whatever job will kill us the fastest. Let’s tackle some simple stuff. I bet you’re broke after yesterday, anyway,” said Rowan.
Janus let out a brief grunt in response. He wasn't keen on confessing that he had blown through almost all his money the previous day. It felt excessive to him, spending so much at once. He had found it difficult to refuse Tara whenever she’d insisted that he purchase something. Besides, he had almost nothing to his name after his room had been destroyed in Crow Station.
He tried to tell himself that he was just rebuilding what he had lost. It wasn’t very convincing.
Rowan placed his finger on a writ near eye level.
“Something like this will be good. This job is to protect earth manipulators as they dig. Usually pretty low profile. Low-level monsters, or no monsters at all if we get lucky. To accept the writ, we just pull it off the board and inform the clerks.” Rowan said and then peeled the paper from the notice board.
“What is the pay like for these jobs?” asked Janus.
“Well, it’s not gonna be huge. A single silver eagle for each of us. This job pays better than others at this level because we’ll probably be working for a few days. Usually, we camp out with the digging crews. We get a bonus for each monster we take out, though.”
Janus considered the job. A single silver eagle actually wasn’t that bad. Most laborers would earn that in a little over a month.
“That sounds good to me.” Janus shrugged. “Is, uh, is there a date? When would we start?”
“Looks like two days from now is when the crew wants to move out. Since our team is about level 30 on average, we might have some leeway to convince them to wait a day. These crews value safety and want the best delvers they can get.”
“Two days should be good. I still need to check in with the governor’s office. They were going to see if my dad made it to Cougar Station or not.”
“Aye. I almost forgot about your dad. I’m sure he made it out. You mentioned he was an engineer. He must have helped collapse the rail line. I’d wager those workers went north, after.”
North would mean Cougar Station. It made sense, Cougar Station would have been the closer option.
“Yeah….”
“Anyway, we should tell Tara we picked out a job. She’s gonna be upset that it’s not super dangerous, but that woman is obsessed with gettin’ herself killed.”
Tara's reaction to the news was more intense than Janus had anticipated. She was adamant that they should prioritize the writs from the right side of the notice board. Janus could somewhat understand her reasoning, dangerous writs were worth more for a delvers job history, and Tara didn’t seem all that concerned about the money.
However, he wasn't interested in jumping back into any life-threatening situations so soon after returning to civilization. Even the job Rowan had selected had him on edge. It was likely that his robe wouldn’t be finished by the time they left. Even if the risk was low, it was still a risk.
Eventually, Tara agreed to escort the digging crew. The trio all signed their names on the writ and presented it to the guild clerks. The clerks noted that the job had been taken. They would inform the writ issuer that a team had accepted the job.
With that done, both Rowan and Tara explained that they had some errands to run. Janus bid them goodbye and decided now would be a good time to head to the governor’s office.
-
The officers outside the governor’s office had been a lot less intrusive now that Janus was wearing a clean outfit. It didn’t really matter all that much to Janus, but he was glad to not have an escort watching his every move this time around.
The secretary spotted him before he even reached the desk.
“Oh! Uh, Janus, right?” the secretary said.
“Yeah. That’s me.”
“I know it’s a bit earlier than expected, but I actually got a response from Cougar Station. We’ve been dealing with communication problems even before the attack. There’s been issues since that dungeon popped up on the rail line to Crow Station. Sorry, I’m rambling.”
“Oh? Did they send the list of refugees?”
“No, but I asked them if any of the refugees registered as Cyrus Alamy.” The secretary grinned. “And I am happy to say that the name was in their record of refugees from Crow Station!”