"Why do you have these?" Euness asked, perplexed, looking over what looked like large spheres on his desk. They were the life cores that came out of the trolls.
“I’m telling you that you guys failed to do your due diligence,” Dwindle chastised gruffly, “If the champ wasn’t able to take on a fully grown troll (he can by the way), then we would’ve died a dog’s death out there!”
“But why are there four of them?” Euness asked, irritated and confused, not able to grasp the situation at hand.
“We’re talking about the champ here,” Dwindle said with pride, smacking Euness’ desk for emphasis, “If he can’t handle a few smelly trolls then he wouldn’t be the champ, now would he?”
“I’m sorry. I still don’t understand why there are four of these cores here when the quest stated that there was one troll to fight.”
They began arguing back and forth with each other, which Dwindle was happy to do.
Some humans guessed that dwarves actually enjoyed engaging in infuriating debates and arguments. There were reports of some humans that witnessed a dwarven couple arguing like their lives depended on it only for that same couple to start hugging and kissing afterwards.
“Is there a problem?” a feminine voice sounded from the side of the arguing pair.
“Oh, Vilda,” Euness greeted, acknowledging the well-dressed young woman, “I didn’t know you had come to the slums. What brings you here?”
“I just finished some work around here and was on my way back to the white rabbit district, but I needed drop by to pick up a few things,” Vilda replied with poise fit for someone of her status.
“Don’t let us grumpy old men take up your time,” Euness said humbly.
“Speak for yourself,” Dwindle grumbled.
He was actually younger than Euness, but dwarves were seen as older by humans due to the scrunched up skin on their faces that resembled wrinkles.
“Look at the amount of cores,” Vilda gasped lightly in surprise seeing the sizeable spheres sitting on Euness’ desk. “You must be proud to have a team here in such a small branch guild able to produce these kinds of results.”
“Well, uh…” Euness faltered not knowing what to say.
“It wasn’t a team who produced these cores, Lass,” Dwindle said with a low voice, trying to sound like a storyteller about to reach the climax of a story.
“Careful with your tone when speaking to the priestess…” Euness warned in a whisper but was thoroughly ignored. “And what of Goser? Do you not include him when you refer to your team?”
Dwindle’s face blanked and then he sighed, “Goser abandoned us.”
“What?” Euness sputtered.
“When he realized we were up against a fully mature troll, Goser ran off.”
“What a bastard,” grunted Euness then saw Vilda and coughed, “Excuse me, priestess.”
“Not often do Hunters choose the coward’s way out,” Vilda commented, shaking her blonde head, “It is disappointing to hear.”
“I’ll take care of the report,” Euness sighed then refocused on the spheres in front of him, “But I’m still waiting on the explanation for these.”
“Yes,” Vilda nodded, “Who was it that procured these?”
"Who else but one man?" Dwindle said, not fully answering the question to add dramatic effect. Euness rolled his eyes.
“What do you mean, sir dwarf?” Vilda asked, curious.
“This is the work of the champ!” Dwindle proclaimed, gripping a small fist in front of him.
“I don’t know who you are referring to…” Vilad said, unsure.
“The champ, Red Rumble!”
“The young man from the Reeking Valley?”
“The one and the same, lass.”
Vilda had to pause to wrap her mind around the idea of a single peasant able to kill four trolls.
“That has yet to be verified…” Euness tried to barge in.
“Check the cores and the fingers we brought!” Dwindle demanded. “You’ll see whether or not what’s the truth, you faithless human!”
Euness exasperated a heavy breath of air causing his glasses to move lower down on his nose. He didn’t like dealing with dwarves. They were always a handful, always.
Vilda stood by as she watched in anticipation as Euness brought out some equipment from beneath his desk, tools made of silver with etchings of magical enchantments scribbled on the sides of each of them. There was a circular clasp, small scale and a treasure chest the size of a shoebox. He then unfurled a scroll that had a vast amount of words written on it and laid it on the desk next to the tools.
He used the silver clasp to pinch each finger then moved to refer what he read on the tool with what was written on the scroll. The silver clasp was a tool used to check whether each finger came from the same monster or a different one entirely. Such checks helped the guild verify the accurate number of monsters killed.
Afterwards, Euness placed each life core onto a scale, doing the same as he did with the clasp, went over to the scroll after seeing what the scale read. The silver scale was a tool made to measure the makeup of the cores, to test what kind of creature it had come from.
Finally, he placed all the coins and fingers into the treasure chest, causing it to light up, almost blinding the onlookers. The shoebox-sized treasure chest was simply a tool meant for measuring the freshness of what was put into it. In the case of the fingers, it determined whether they came from a recently killed monster or one that died years ago. What it measured in the cores was similar in that it made sure that the cores had the energy levels of a monster that was alive recently and not one that had been hunted some time ago. The treasure chest helped the guild check if a hunter had actually completed their quest and not just gone to a market to buy items to pretend that they had. If all the checks failed and suspicion remained, a full investigation may result.
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Euness took the cores and fingers out of the silver chest and placed them back on the desk. He lowered his glasses to peer over them directly at Dwindle.
"How did you two accomplish this?" He asked with seriousness, as if he were a guard asking witnesses about a crime they’d seen.
Vilda couldn’t help but make an “O” with her mouth in surprise seeing that the dwarf had spoken the truth.
“Didn’t I tell you? The champ is the champ for a reason,” Dwindle said while puffing out his chest.
“The quest parchment reads that there was supposed to be a single immature troll to subjugate,” Euness said, beginning to grow louder, “These are life cores from four fully mature trolls. Tell me, how under the gods’ blue skies did you and someone from the Reeking Valley accomplish this?”
“Training and fighting,” Dwindle bragged, “Training and fighting.”
Euness became red in the face and looked like he wanted to reach over his desk and hit the cocky dwarf on his red nose.
Vilda chose to speak up, “If the guild mishandled a quest, it is a serious matter.”
“Vilda?” Euness sputtered, coming back to his senses hearing her, and then expressed his confusion, “I don’t think I understand, priestess.”
“The guild will have to compensate for the mishap of giving a quest with faulty information as well as reprimand the quest giver and attempt to force them to pay the appropriate amount as well as pay for damages caused to the guild. If a Hunter had died or was injured, the guild would demand an even heavier recompense.” Vilda explained. “There may be need of an investigation if the quest giver denies any prior knowledge to the level of danger the quest presented.”
An investigation into quest givers was an unlikely occurrence, but a known one.
In order to save money, some quest givers would try and hold back the severity of a quest they ask the Hunter’s Guild to take. But to try and deceive the Hunter’s Guild was not a wise decision. The guild was well established and had many means of not only finding out the truth, but could also receive help from the government to bring charges against a dishonest quest giver.
Euness stilled at Vilda’s words.
He would have a long day ahead of him and maybe even a tiring week trying to sort out such a mess. He, then and there, gave in and presented Dwindle with the quest reward along with money for the unexpected variables he and Red had faced.
Euness also offered to buy the cores on the guild’s behalf.
The Hunter’s Guild, like the rest of the world, valued life cores highly and offered the market price to their hunters in order to get them. A hunter could refuse, but if they weren’t a mage or had any other uses for the cores, they usually sold them.
Dwindle walked away from the guild with a wide grin on his face and pep in his step while humming dwarven tunes. A bag of coins almost as big as his torso jingled happily as he strutted all the way to the guild bank.
“I still can’t believe it…” Euness said with a sigh after Dwindle’s departure.
Vilda stood by his desk thinking deeply.
“Euness,” She said suddenly, getting the receptionist’s attention.
“Yes, priestess?” Euness answered.
“I’d like you to keep an eye out for that Red Rumble character,” Vilda instructed.
“I know what you mean, priestess,” Euness began, “I have my suspicions as well. Those two, boy and dwarf, may not be honest.”
“No,” Vilda expounded, “I’d like you to keep an eye on him for another reason.”
“Priestess?”
“Notify me of his progress. I believe he and I are similar in that he will soon be leaving this place for greener pastures, similar to what I did.
Euness almost stumbled and spat, “Are you serious, priestess? But he’s from the Reeking Valley! Nothing ever good ever comes out of that place.”
“Please,” Vilda implored, “Do this for me.”
“O-of course,” Euness stammered, agreeing to her request.
In a dimly lit, smoky room, Goser was at a table, halfway into a bottle. After another swig and hefty groan, he wiped his mouth, his eyes unfocused and staring at nothing.
Footsteps slapped against the floor behind him. A rat faced peasant with a strong stench appeared at the side of him.
“There a reason you are disturbing me, rat bastard?” Goser asked, pouring another cup for himself.
Tatters shook his head in disappointment.
Who does this rat bastard think he is? Goser thought, indignant. He was a Hunter of the upper district. Did this lowly creature of The Hole think he couldn’t touch him because of their affiliation to the same organization?
“Boss wants to have a word with you,” Tatters said, his eyes disapproving.
“What for?” Goser asked, slurping up his cup in a single gulp.
“Is that something you should be asking? Boss wants you, so go,” Tatters scoffed.
Goser rose to his feet and stood a full head over Tatters. He glowered down at the shorter young man and spat, “Boy, your time in this trash heap must’ve rotted your brain. Don’t think because I live in the upper districts that I won’t harm you…or worse.”
Tatters leaned in and said, “Boss. Wants. You. Now.”
Goser had to lean away from the peasant’s rotten stench, but he couldn’t deny Tatters’ brashness had an effect on him. The only way someone like Tatters could act this way was because Goser must be in deep trouble.
“Fine,” Goser spat and shoved past the young peasant.
A menacing smile grew on Tatters’ face, his buck teeth on full display. He turned and saw the Goser had left his bottle. Smirking, Tatters’ reached for it, but came up short as a calloused hand came into view and snatched it away.
“Almost forgot this,” Goser said, and chuckled at the disappointment in Tatters’ face.
Dirty peasants will always be dirty peasants.
A few minutes later, Goser was on the floor, leaking blood from his nose and mouth, his eyes trained on a man with pockmarks on his cheeks, standing behind two massive men looming above the Hunter.
“You failed,” Boss Harvual said in a way almost as if he wasn’t surprised.
“They died in that troll quest,” Goser argued, sliding his back up a wall behind him to sit straight, “I was there. I was planning on beating on them and demanding payment once they were tired, but the quest giver had lied. It wasn’t an immature troll. It was a fully mature one.”
“They’re still alive,” Havul said, sage symbols above casting a glimmer of light in his cold, black eyes.
“What?” Goser sputtered, “But it was a fully mature troll.”
Havul shook his head and sighed, “You had one use, and you threw it away being a coward.”
Goser could feel death approaching. He gulped hard.
“…I still have my uses,” Goser argued, his voice beginning to croak, “I can still get your money.”
“It was only sixty silver crupels,” Havul sneered, “As if the White Scale Vipers needed to bend over backwards for such an amount.”
“Then why am I being punished?”
Veins appeared in Havul’s forehead as his pockmarked cheeks jiggled, “Fool,” he grunted, “Do you think you weren’t reported to the guild for running away? As a Hunter, you should know that they’ll kick you out, and then you’ll be investigated. If you’re investigated, that might lead them to us.”
He let out an irritated sigh, “After all that we did to get you to the upper district. You go and ruin everything.”
Goser cleared his throat and replied, “I’m still a Hunter.”
“Eh?”
“I’m a Hunter. They’ll come looking for me.”
“They’ll be looking for you to prosecute you. If they find you dead, they’ll think it justified and stop there.”
Goser fell silent. Havul shook his head and his black eyes gestured to the large men near him. The two brawny individuals moved for the fallen Hunter. One suddenly fell back unconscious, the other grunted as he struggled.
“I’m still a Hunter,” Goser roared as mana visibly pulsated from his body, his hands locked with the remaining goon, grappling with all he had. “I won’t go down easily!”
“Why do they always have to make it hard,” Havul sighed as he slicked back his already slicked back hair. He looked down to the sleeping underling and scoffed, “Useless.”
Goser managed to trip up the remaining goon and took him down. He rained down blows until the man stopped moving. Breathing hard, he locked onto Havul.
“I think there is room for renegotiation,” Goser exasperated, attempting to catch his breath.
“Just die already,” Havul complained, “I’m busy.”
Goser's face contorted in rage, and he lunged at the boss, a man two heads shorter than himself. As Goser’s hands began to close in on the boss, a red glow grew from Havul’s body.
“What is that?” Goser murmured his last words before he died.