Chapter 1 - An Eye for an Oye
Somewhere in the Galive Desert
The gentle rhythmic crunch of sand beneath paws helps to ease my suffering, the sound just makes me so sleepy. In most cases I would find that wonderful as a pseudo-insomniac; however as things stand falling asleep would definitely lead to me dying. As the current situation stands I may or may not be dying of dehydration, the dizziness and headaches make me believe the worst.
Here I am in the midst of the desert riding on the back of my partner, Sai the griffalo. She is like a griffin except not able to fly, which would really be useful right now. Griffalos are dangerous creatures with incredible cunning and strength, they differ from their airborne relatives as they move in packs instead of pairing up. In addition they traded the beaks for some chompers. I'm note really sure why they are related to grifffins to be honest. Sai isn’t like that however she is rather docile and lazy if I’m being honest. Like me she lacks a pack, but I’m sure she would be the Alpha if she had one.
Sai is currently acting as my transportation to the nearest town. We recently finished a bounty but ran out of supplies, meaning no more water for us and no more food. I’m surprised she hasn’t taken a bite out of me considering I couldn’t stop her right now. With the sun brutally glaring down upon us she trots towards the last town we went to. I wish I knew how far it was but I’m not really good with directions.
Crunch… Crunch… Crunch…. I love the sound Sai’s little paws make. She's so cute, If I live I’m gonna rub her belly so hard…
These were the last thoughts of Lars before entering dreamland….
A wet splash hit my face… It must be Sai being playful.
“Stop it Sai, your so silly. Don’t lick my face.” I say half asleep.
“Hey fuck face get up.” A gruff voice yells.
Opening my eyes I’m greeted by a wood ceiling and several people crowding around me, one of them standing above me with a bucket in one hand and a water satchel in the other.
“Your not Sai, who in the eleven hells are you?” I say uncomfortable with all the eyes on me.
The man grumbles under his breath, something about ungratefulness and shit. He is clearly past his golden years, balding down the center and clutching on to the last of his sides. He has a large scar running down his cheek, looks like a stab wound to me.
“I’m your savior, so why don’t you get up and get your ‘Sai’. He says mockingly “The damn beast has been howling and growling non-stop since you got here. I could barely get you off the damn thing.”
It's after he says this I notice the familiar angry howls coming from outside. I need to calm her down before she starts wilding out. Who knows if she’ll chomp down on someone who gets too close.
“Hey can you be a dear and help me up and outside, I’m still a little weak.” I say reaching my hands out to him like some kind of newborn.
“Yea yea, I got you princess.” The man reaches down and grabs my hand pulling me up with a surprising amount of vigor for his age. “What’s your name, stranger? I’m Elroy Bavins.”
“Lars” I say, tossing my arm around his shoulder as we walk through the crowd of people around me.
“Lars… What?” he says scowling around at people to get them out of the way.
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“Just Lars.”
“You some kind of vagrant?” he says scowling at me like i’m trouble.
“Yeah, something like that.” I say as Elroy opens the door for me.
The desert sun hurts my eyes, shining just as bright as before, truly unforgiving. The outside scene is just as crowded as inside, except instead of people being curious they're scared. The reason being Sai throwing an absolute hissy fit, growling and chomping at anybody within a 3 foot radius, kicking up dust and sand as she stomps around. Men with swords are armed all around her shaking in their boots, hoping they don’t have to fight her. As Elroy and I make our way through the crowd I tell him to let me walk on my own from here.
“Hello Sai, did you miss me!” I yell out to the enraged beast.
The growling stops as it turns towards me, mouth dripping with saliva and fangs bared and ready. The beast’s golden mane is matted and clumped, it’s white fur is dirtied by the sand looking more brown than white. It pauses for a moment before charging right into my solar plexus, promptly knocking all air in my lungs out. The crowd around me lets out a collective gasp. I lay on the sandy ground as Sai began to rub her big head on me, her mane getting into my mouth.
“Nice to see you too.” I wheeze, trying to spit hair out of my mouth only to have it immediately replaced by her large mane
Eventually I get Sai to stop drowning me in fur, and I stand up noticing the crowd is still there for some reason. I can’t help but stand there awkwardly for a moment staring at the crowd while petting Sai absentmindedly.
“Can anyone point me towards the Hunter’s Guild I have a mission to turn in.” I ask hoping to leave this odd situation.
The crowd just stares at me still talking amongst themselves , I get that I stand out but this is just odd.
“Hey folks get on out of here, show’s over.” Elroy yells out walking out of the crowd.
People mumble and grumble as they return to whatever they were doing before I got here. A few even tried to come pet Sai before leaving, they didn’t get within three feet before she started growling.
“Come on kid I’ll show you to the guild, in exchange tell me about your mission. Keep an old crone entertained.”
“I’d be glad to recount you with some tales of heroism. My quest was to hunt down a fugitive of the holy church, some sort of defector. He was secretly practicing dark a-”
“Hold up a minute son, I haven’t been keeping up with Hunter work for a while but when did the Holy Church start issuing quests? Don’t they have all those paladins and crusaders just standing around?”
“Well word on the grapevine is they are concerned about defectors and security at the moment. Supposedly there has been a record high of heretics discovered and a lot of them have come from the church.”
“Wow news like that doesn’t get out around here, but anyway back to the story.”
“So like I was saying I came out here to the desert to find this defector, I tracked him down with Sai into this desert using some of his belongings from the church. We end up going all the way to this cave in the middle of the desert. At first glance it seemed like nothing much but going deeper we discovered he had some sort of research going on down there. Entering into his den there were maps everywhere, on the walls, on the floor, all of them covered in x’s, it was a mess. At first I thought he had left and would be coming back until he bursted out from some dark corner with a fire spell I barely managed to dodge but he struck my cantine causing me to lose all of our water. Sai dived at him, chomping into him almost tearing him in half, but right before he died he pressed his hand against some sort of seal on the wall. This was clearly some sort of trap as the cave started to shake. I grabbed one of his bags and bolted out of there. The cave was destroyed and I was stranded in the desert with no water.”
Elroy stared at me, surprise all over his face “Listen kid, I have had quite a few adventures in my day but that is crazy, the church needs to do something about this! They can’t let these psychos run around here.”
“I couldn’t agree more man.”
Our conversation wrapped up as we were right in front of the Hunter’s Guild. Time to collect my reward, and celebrate. Telling Sai to stay outside I walk into the building. Like most Hunter’s guilds the design is standardized. Three floors the first being a dining hall and storage. The second floor was mainly for administrative work, getting missions, ranking up. The final floor was for the administrative work and guildmaster’s quarters, getting called up there is a death sentence. The only other thing on the third floor is the nexus, which is a device that allows all the guilds to communicate, they can’t send items around or anything but can message each other. I always liked the design you could see into the second floor from the first so the space always felt open to me, a really good community vibe.
Unlike the more popular guild the dining hall was emptier than usual, it had to be around dinner time but there weren’t many hunters here. There were a few quads and several duos but the last one I was in was packed to the brim. Either way not really my concern, I’m getting my money and leaving. I hate the desert, top ten worst places to almost die in.
Making my way to the second floor, I get to the clerk counter, as usual it is some cute girl in her mid-twenties. I don’t know how they always have them in stock, I feel like I should have seen a buff dude or some nice old lady, but I guess they don’t get the job.
“Hello Ma’am I’m here to turn in a quest for the holy church.”
“No problem sir.” She says her voice bubbly and excitable. “Can I see your proof of completion please?”
I reach into my satchel and pull out a holy church medallion. These are issued by the churches to their members, they seem to be super valuable. They are these 12 pointed things that connect at all angles in the center is this crystal, normally they glow with a white light. This one has a dull red glow.
Handing it to the clerk, she begins to inspect it for a moment before writing on a pad. The pad glows for a moment and the writing disappears, this is the device they use to send the info. We sit there awkwardly for a moment before the pad glows again.
“Alright sir everything has gone through your reward is 2 gold Oyes.”
“Thank you.”
2 gold Oyes is a lot, at least for a mission as easy as that (even though I almost died). I’m going to the bar and getting destroyed.