Thundering song echoed from the Adventurer’s Guild.
Mugs were slammed on tables, creating a beat that nearly drowned out the lute it was supposed to support. Under the guidance of a Bard, a blonde half-elf seated on top of a table, nearly the entire tavern sang along.
“And when adventure calls, where do ya go?
To the place where ale flows!
To the Guild! To the Guild!”
The few that were out of the song were busy pouring drinks down their gullets or having rigorous discussion with someone at their table. Even those groups swayed their feet and heads to the song. Even the barmaids seemed to swing their hips in unity with the rhythm, as they sashayed from bar to table and back.
“Where does the blackboard wait for ya?
At the place where the comrades sing!
At the Guild! At the Guild!”
Mugs were raised in merry toast, as all went silent for a moment. The Bard struck a swift number of accords, the invigorating music practically visible. Magic made the notes echo with power in the large tavern. Up at the second level, people pressed against the wooden railing not to miss a singular moment of the performance.
“Who will ya meet as you Quest today?
They are members of these halls!
Of the Guild! Of the GuIld”
The Bard jumped to her feet, redoubling the effort of her play. On her own, she sang the end of the song.
“The Guild is where we meet and the Guild is where we stay!
Through rain and sunshine, here do we dwell!
And what brings us out of these friendly halls!
Is money, fame, and divinity – or nature's call!”
Laughter and cheer accompanied the now disunited drumming of mugs on the many tables. The Bard bowed many times, before jumping off the table and being greeted by her own party. Things quieted down after that, everyone returning to their individual conversations. That made the massive tavern hall, filled by almost 200 people, far from quiet, just less noisy than before.
Korith turned the last of their silver coins between her fingers, inspecting it for any kind of blemish. When she found something, she pinched the metal, a polishing rag between her claws and the coin, and rubbed until there was nothing to be found anymore. “You’re my greatest treasure,” she mumbled repeatedly.
“We’ll make money come tomorrow,” Apexus promised and looked to the rest of his party. Aclysia and Reysha were by the reception desk. In typical fashion of the Adventurer’s Guild, tavern and business were merged. It was a tradition more than anything else, many of the people actually working the reception desk would have rather done their business somewhere quiet. There was a limited utility to having other adventurers always in earshot of someone taking on a Quest though. It gave people the opportunity to weigh in, offer help, or just give advice.
Advice that could be, even if unwelcome, life-saving.
The duo barely stood out in this crowd. The entire party barely stood out in the crowd. There were goliaths, kobolds, goblins, humans, elves, various beastkin, and even a nearly three-metre tall half-dragon. Further, like Korith and Reysha, most of the visitors of the establishment kept their weapons close. Armaments were carried around casually around these parts, from daggers to bows. All were at the side and in their sheath, however. When a weapon was drawn, it was only for the purpose of showing the craftsmanship.
They were a colourful quartet, but they were just another set in a large, ever-shifting blend.
Apexus stared at the meat on his wooden spoon. ‘So much flavour cooked out,’ he complained and slowly moved the alien utensil in his hand to his mouth. When enough of the chunky bits had been fished out, he just poured the rest of the meal into his mouth and swallowed.
“You didn’t like it?” Korith asked, still going through her portion.
“No. Too salty. Not enough fat to the meat.”
Korith put another spoonful in her mouth. She thought it tasted pretty great, but they had quite different desires when it came to food so that wasn’t too surprising.
Aclysia and Reysha returned to the table a moment later. The redhead grimaced at the half-eaten bowl in front of her, then forced herself to shovel the rest of it inside. It wasn’t as terrible to her as most meals were, but the traces of magic still in this meal were not enough to satisfy her condition. Rather than a bowl of puss and spider thread, she felt like she was eating liquid dust. Not great, just comparatively acceptable.
“We have acquired answers,” Aclysia said and gestured at the world map next to them. It had been painted onto this segment of the wall and was present in various other forms all over the Adventurer’s Guild building complex. It paid to have people have a steady reminder of where they could go and how to get there. “U-I-O stands for ‘Under the Influence Of’.”
Apexus looked at the map again.
image [https://i.imgur.com/evH3v2B.png]
“Is it like the Spilling Swamps on Tacuitos?” Apexus asked.
It was an area of the Leaf that they had not spent any time in during their stay. Still, they were aware of it. The Spilling Swamp had been an area around a Dungeon aptly called the Spill. From there, foul water and monsters would emerge. Most of the Dungeons the party had encountered thus far had contained their influence to within their walls.
There were exceptions. Exceptions like the Spill, that affected the surrounding lands, or Dragonspawn, that were the proverbial breeding ground for creatures that then spread far and wide across the Leaf. Such effects guaranteed that adventurers remained in steady demand, either by taking care of the effects directly or by beating the dungeon and making it temporarily stop, as gods often implemented.
Aclysia nodded. “Affirmative. Each coloured zone on the map represents the currently known influence areas of dungeons. The level recommendations as displayed are of the area affected and, after the slash, of the dungeons themselves. Dungeons, as per usual code, are marked by orange diamonds.”
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
“What’re the white areas then?” Korith wanted to know. “I’m guessing little areas where people carved out a stable-ish realm?”
“Affirmative.” Aclysia nodded again. “Some of these areas fashion themselves independent kingdoms, others are simple adventurer’s outposts scaled up with no interest in self-governance. In all cases, they are open to any helping hands that will come their way. However, these areas are not fully pacified. They do have to guard their borders against attacks and their realms against Incursions.”
””Incursions?”” Korith and Apexus asked at once. Something about the way Aclysia had said that word just piqued their interest. They weren’t even surprised that they had both spoken in unison.
“Turns out that these influence zones go pretty fucking hard,” Reysha explained. “In the areas, sometimes smaller versions of the dungeons just appear and need to be cleaned out before they close again.”
“If I understand correctly, their frequency is decreasing over time. Most likely, there is a finite energy reserve beyond what the Dungeons are granted by the Omniverse itself. As long as adventurers deplete more than the Dungeons are granted, that finite reserve keeps decreasing, gradually shrinking the area of influence.” Aclysia gestured at the map. “Drowse is particularly safe. The area around the Worldstem, this city, has not seen an Incursion in three years.”
“So, we kill creatures, clear the Dungeons, and bit by bit the wilderness is tamed,” Reysha summarized.
“Current estimates are 50 to 100 years of the current activity level to bring this wilderness to a point where half of it is safely travelable by regular people. As new land is steadily being claimed, new investors are also steadily pouring in, alongside the usual interest groups that follow adventurers. We should be able to generate revenue easily.”
Apexus nodded and then got up. “We have the minimum knowledge of this world. Let us pick a Quest now.”
Korith finished the rest of her (and Reysha’s) bowl, then they all made their way over to the blackboard.
It was enormous, much larger than any of its variety the party had seen before. Notes were pinned onto it at such a density that some were barely even visible. This was doubly true for the segment of the board that was reserved for self-postings. Those Quests were not vetted by the Guild and had been pinned there by whoever. It was quicker to do it this way but adventurers often avoided those Quests for two simple reasons: trust and appearances.
Without the Guild to guarantee that the Quest was put up by a trustworthy individual that had the funds to pay the adventurers, many parties just did not bother. Almost as important was that the self-written notes usually just did not look that enticing or were missing key details that the person writing them just hadn’t thought of at the time.
That was the usual case. On this Leaf, the self-posting section was heavily crowded by parties looking for a job. Since most of those living on Alarshus were retired adventurers or those that spent most of their time next to active adventurers, they knew the game. Additionally, without other law enforcement, anyone who screwed over an adventurer, at best, found themselves ignored by the entire community. The worse outcome was when the adventurers that had just risked their necks purging a Wandering Root infestation decided that their weapons worked just as well against weaker targets.
The Inevitable party stood before the Guild-sanctioned part of the blackboard. “…What would be a wise first Quest…?” Apexus thought out loud. All of them were looking around, struck by equal parts uncertainty and decision paralysis.
‘Usually our issues just come to us,’ Reysha thought, sarcastically. ‘That’s much easier.’
“Darling, do you mind if I take a look at the self-posted notes?” Aclysia asked and got the go-ahead.
The remaining three of the party kept staring at the blackboard.
A man next to Apexus suddenly pointed at one of the notes. “I recommend this one.”
Apexus first inspected the pointing man. He was a very unordinary man because he was an ordinary man in a very unordinary crowd. Brown hair, long and mildly dishevelled, brown eyes, beard stubble on an averagely shaped face, and ordinary adventuring gear covering simple, athletic gear. His clothes had various additional slings to secure pieces of armour on and a sword on his hip made his Class clear: this was a human Warrior.
The humanoid chimera read the Quest next. It was posted by the Sleeping Empire’s embassy and called for an escorting job from their current location across the ocean and over to the little bit of the Lanaan Hives territory that Drowse had a foothold on. After a one week stay, they would then come back. A minimum pay of 20 gold was listed, with a bonus depending on evaluation of work done.
20 gold was a lot, Apexus knew that much by now, and scanning the surrounding Quest notes indicated that it was a lot even for this Leaf. “Why that one?” he asked.
“You’re new here, right?” the man asked. “Name’s Atlas, by the way. I’m the leader of the Atlas Party – yes I know how pretentious that sounds.”
“Apexus… leader of the Inevitable party,” the humanoid chimera answered.
“Alright, that makes two of us that sound pretentious!” Atlas joked and hit the back of Apexus’ shoulder. The humanoid chimera did not move a muscle in his face. “Ah, stoic, a true Monk then,” the Warrior said, keeping his jovial tone. “No offense meant. I just have a particular sense of humour.”
“I deal with worse,” Apexus said and gestured towards Reysha, who waved past her broad man.
Atlas waved back, then put the hand on his hip. “To answer your question, that Quest gets you out and about for a bit and the people you’re protecting are from the Sleeping Empire. They get their money from the state, so they’re not stingy with it. Just show them that you’re seriously struggling against whatever you’re fighting and they’ll give you a big fat bonus.”
Apexus did not like the man’s tone. After a solid five seconds of thorough pondering, he had worked out with near certainty why. “You suggest we lie to them to increase our pay.”
“It's not lying, you just let them see that we’re doing all the dangerous work.” Atlas rolled his neck. “If they wanted to pay less, they should try not being useless. Until then, they’ll have to hire us. If we take a bit of advantage of their naivety, we can buy better equipment, which keeps everyone safe. Everybody wins, right?”
“Your argument is like a slug: soft at the core and surrounded by mucus,” Apexus answered.
Atlas’ smile dropped and he took a deep swig from the beer mug in his hand. “If you want to be a goodie-two-shoes, nobody is stopping you. No need to be an ass about it because the rest of us are looking out for ourselves.”
The growing tension between the two of them was not missed by surrounding adventurers. “Come on, Atlas, no need to be mean to the newcomer!” someone in the crowd shouted. “They’ll find out the business soon enough.”
Apexus’ eyes had returned to the board. “A question to your wisdom,” the humanoid chimera pointed at a note whose paper had turned a light yellow from being ignored for weeks. “What do you think of that Quest?”
Ignoring his annoyance, Atlas did as the Monk requested. The Quest described repeated attacks near a farm in the north of Drowse territory. “Low reward, far away, and you aren’t even guaranteed to find the monsters. They probably migrated by now or someone took care of it accidentally on the way through,” the Warrior answered. “Not a good use of your time.”
“I agree,” Apexus said, then pointed to another one. “What about this one?”
‘Fucking Monks… this is what I get for helping another newcomer,’ Atlas thought to himself, but played along. “Reward for that one is pretty meagre, definitely not worth facing an Incursion for.”
“So, you would just leave it be?” Apexus asked. “It’s not far from here. 1 Gold is still good money.”
“If we let them sit on it for a while, it’ll go up to 5,” Atlas answered. “I know this farmer. It’s always the same with him.”
“Do you know why?” Apexus was earnest in his curiosity. Being stingy with a reward that could save one’s life was one thing, needing months to save up the money another.
Atlas shrugged. “Beats me.”
“You never asked?”
“Look, I can see where this is going.” Atlas emptied his mug and placed it on a nearby table. The people on it just laughed at the known adventurer. “It’s a very simple concept, right? We’re adventurers. We risk our asses so that the farmers don’t have to learn how to fight. If they don’t want to pay, they have to learn how to take care of it themselves. I won’t feel bad because I am making sure we earn as much as possible so that my party can be equipped for whatever shit the Dungeons throw at us next.”
“I see.” Apexus stared at the notably shorter and notably boozed man. Two differing instincts wrestled inside the predator. First was to preserve the energy that he would waste on what came next if he opened his mouth. Second was the surging desire to teach the haughty man a lesson.
‘If no one in the room is doing the right thing, that makes it your duty.’
Maltos’ words pushed Apexus’ towards the realization of his principle. “I find your lack of empathy rotten,” the Monk stated.
Atlas glared up at the humanoid chimera. “You know what? Fuck you.”
And just like that, the Warrior went for an uppercut.