With a solid defeat in toe, I congratulated Clair on her victory. She nodded at me showing that she respected me for my talent and with a desire for more. Yaguo seemed pleased as well. Clapping his hands slowly with a wry smile on his face.
“Well now. It would seem that you don’t have as much experience in the dark arts as you do with the natural arts. That is fine, you clearly have the talent for it. Clair has been my go-to for such missions for years. The fact that you managed to find the target before she eliminated it, let alone preventing her from dealing a finishing blow. Speaks volumes about your skills. No matter how new to them you are. I’ll approve your entry to the Adventures guild within the hour. Wait in the lobby for now. Amelia will hand you your guild card and rank once everything has been processed. If you have any questions feel free to reach out to her or me. I expect big things from you young man.” He said, then both he and Clair vanished in a puff of smoke. Leaving me alone to my thoughts.
I did as he asked and waited on the couch I first sat on. Though it didn’t take nearly as long as he suggested. In about 10 minutes Amelia came and sat down across from me, just as before.
“Here is your guild card and if you look here your rank is displayed in large letters. It also has your name and your physical description. All other information about you is sealed and is only available upon request. Which in most cases is denied unless requested from another guild master. You may now choose to accept any quest ranked D and below. To start off a D ranked adventurer is quite impressive. So, hold your head high and work hard. If you have any other questions, I’ll be at my workstation. If I’m not present, please feel free to request my services and I’ll come straight away." With that, Amelia stood up and went back behind the counter and got back to work.
I decided to go and look at the quest available to me and found several I could take. With so many options I ended up deciding on one to collect iron ore from the earth dungeon a few days out. Given that was my original goal in the first place it seemed fitting. Choosing the quest, I told Amelia. She informed me that the quest I’d chosen was repeatable and I would be allowed to undertake it as many times as I liked but that I just needed to let her know that I was heading that way. I thanked her and made my way back to the entrance of the city.
Standing near the gate I saw the irritated faces of my two companions glaring at me. One with crossed arms and the other with hands on her hips. Clearly, they weren't amused with how long I took to return to them. They gave me a calculating look before smiling at me with a mix of relief and displeasure. I continued to make my way to them with a sheepish grin, waving the whole time.
Once I met up with them, I told them what had happened from start to finish. They both listened with rapt attention. Pan gave me odd looks during a few key moments of my story. Whisper, on the other hand, seemed to give a feeling of curiosity and acceptance. When I finished, they both stood there silently for a moment thinking about what I’d just told them.
Out of nowhere Pan threw her arm over my shoulder and said, “Wow. We leave you alone for a day and you manage to find yourself in all kinds of trouble.” chuckling, she continued, “Now it seems like I need to get registered as an adventurer if I want to wander around in this city. But before that we need to complete the job you took. So, boss let’s get our asses moving and conquer a dungeon!”
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Whisper said, “I hate to agree with her but yeah, I’m ready to do something other than sit around in the woods babysitting her. Do you know where the dungeon is or do, we still need to find it?”
I held up a slip of paper with the quest and a small map drawn on it, “Nope. I’ve got a map right here.”
On our way to the dungeon Whisper and Pan, both peppered me with questions about my test, the hidden city lord, the old dwarven drunk, his relation to Bushda, and everything else I did. By the time we made it to the dungeon I'd finally managed to answer most of their questions.
Before us was a large mountain with a massive cave opening guarded by what looked to be man shaped monsters made of dirt, grass, and stone. I use the word man shaped loosely as they were an amalgamation of the three. With misshapen arms and legs, some larger than the others, and others longer or shorter, wider or thinner than any other part on their body. It was a total mash up of limbs to make a vague bipedal shape.
They didn’t have eyes so at first it was hard to tell what direction they were looking but once we watched them for a while. It became easy to see where their gaze landed. Once we had that figured out, we started our hunt. With each of us working as a team, it didn’t take long for us to reach the 3rd floor where the boss resided. Collecting a large amount of iron ore and gems along the way.
Once we reached the boss’s room as I’ll call it, we saw a massive Golem made of stone and iron. It held an iron sword in one hand and a large stone shield was strapped to the other with iron bands. Yellow lights shown behind its large iron helm, that fixed on our location right away.
I said, “Uh, guys! I think this thing is about to charge us.”
“What?!” they both said.
Before they could get anything else out the ground rumbled as the golem stepped in our direction. Each step falling faster and faster, rocking the land every time one of its feet touched the ground, throwing us off balance.
We tried to prepare ourselves for the oncoming titan of earth barreling towards us but with the ground shaking as it was, we couldn’t manage it and before we knew it. It was upon us swinging its massive sword at Pan in an upward slash.
She managed to get her sword in front of her in time to block the strike but the force behind it threw her back. Causing her to crash into the wall behind us. Digging her into it and pinning her in place. Not wanting to be on the receiving end of a swing like that I cast flight on myself and dashed into the air where it was relatively safe. So, I thought.
As I was making my way up into the air, I noticed a hail of stones hurling in my direction. Crashing into me I plummeted back down towards the ground. Battered and bruised from the onslaught of stones smashing into me. Whisper didn’t miss the opportunity to make some distance and strike while the golem was focused on me. A storm of arrows made their way into the helm of the golem. Causing it to cover its face with its shield, giving me and Pan precious moments to recover from its attacks.
We fought the golem for what felt like forever. Every time I thought we’d made some ground a counterattack would soon follow, devastating Pan and me. It usually came in the form of a swarm of stones flying in our direction. Every now and then though a stone spike would burst from the ground, spearing one of us. Or a solid wall of stone would fly into Pan causing Pan to fly into me. It was a nightmare, but Whisper, ever vigilant, continued to nail arrows into the golem’s head. Eventually putting it down for good. After the last strike it crumbled into dirt. Dropping its sword and helm into the pile of earth.
“Good shit Whisper.” I said, “I think I used all of my potions in that fight.”
“Yeah. We would have been screwed if you hadn’t been here. Thanks man.” Pan said.
Breathing hard, Whisper said, “Well you know. I am pretty awesome.”
Then he collapsed to the floor just as exhausted as we were. After some time, we collected the rest of the ore and gems we could find and made our way back to Twin City to turn in the quest. We decided that once the quest was turned in, we would head back with the rest of the iron to see if we could make some new weapons for everyone.