“You see, lad, the old Hero's Guild grew corrupt and arrogant. As they say, a crack in the keystone will ruin the mightiest arch. We mercenaries are all that's left of their tradition.” The speaker was an older, well-rounded fellow. A polite person might say he past his prime, or had let himself go; a rude one would point out he probably never had a prime in the first place.
Listening eagerly was the newest curiosity in the Roasted Boar, Wendalin. Normally the hardened mercenaries would never humour the wild boasting of a teenage boy, but they all saw how beat up he and his uncle were when they suddenly emerged from the cellar the other day. Lin, for his part, was more than willing to listen to his elders' tales of the past... Even if they had to be 'sanitized' a bit. Mercenaries generally weren't the sort to worry about 'corrupting the young', but Lin's father was on the Guard.
But Lin's next question caught the man off-guard. “So, Sir Jan, when will you teach me some Hero skills?” He couldn't help but bear a surprised, yet slightly pained expression. “Err...” Some of the other mercs chimed in “Yeah, Sir Jan.” “Why don't you tell him the secret to your success? *snrk*” It was well-known that Jan had gotten lucky and struck it big when he was younger. He invested it in a few plots of land around the city, and now lived a comfortable, semi-retired life with a wife, and four children.
“Well, erm... It's getting late today. Shouldn't you go check on your uncle?” Thankfully, this redirection tactic worked on Lin. “Oh, yeah! He's been doing better. Dad called in a favour with a priest, and they say he'll be able to walk again within a week. But that he probably shouldn't go straight back to work, something about getting too old for this...”
Lin looked a bit depressed at the thought, but a few of the mercenaries raised their eyebrows in interest. If the city's best Sewer-sweep was retiring, at the same time a new monster appeared in the sewers, then the city was bound to need more hands to clear the sewers. There was no point in moving before a new bounty was posted, but it would pay to prepare ahead of time.
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“Um, maybe I could round up a few of the boys to show you the ropes tomorrow?” Jan pretended to ignore the stink eye the others were throwing him. “Really? That would be great!” The hasty promise seemed to have succeeded. “Well then, I'll see you later!”
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Mark watched Lin leave with disdain. “Damn lucky kid. He nearly gets his mentor killed, and now everyone's fawning over him. We're the ones who discovered these creatures, and what do we get?” Steve replied on cue, “Stiffed, of course.” But his heart wasn't really in it.
“Right. Instead of a solid contract, we get a token reward.” ”Mmhmm...” “Can you believe it? Just twenty stinkin' Rune per head. Not enough for even one good night on the town. Cheapskate couldn't even round up to a full Scroll for us; the miserly bastard.”
Surprisingly, Peter looked up from the sharpening of his blade to chide him. “Ah, quit your griping. You sound like my father used to. Let the boy rest on his laurels, we'll get our chance to show him what real men can do soon enough.” “Since when did we make you the leader?” “If you don't like it, you don't have to follow.”
Mark backed down first; all he really wanted to do was complain out loud, he didn't actually feel like doing something about it. He wasn't the one with the vendetta, anyways.
Peter took advantage of the pause to keep talking.
“We haven't had a good scrap in months, but it sounds like soon there'll be plenty to go around. And I, for one, intend to relish the challenge this time.”