Novels2Search

Chapter 60: Getting Ray Fixed Up

We made it outside using the portals rather quickly with no incident. Once at the entrance one of the guards noticed Ray passed out on my shoulders and called for one of the healers stationed there. We were lead to a room where I was told to lay Ray down on the bed. The healer arrived after a short bit, carrying a bag of equipment, presumably potions and other stuff. He got to work using healing magic and asked us "What happened? There are no physical injuries so is it poison? If so, by what monster"

He was straight to the point with a no-nonsense tone. Ronia answered his question, "We met the named monster on the 10'th floor, an undead hobgoblin assassin with poisoned claws. It poisoned Ray before we managed to kill it." Ronia's answer made the healer think for a bit before pulling some things out of his bag. He got a flask, a greenish powder, and an orange paste. He told Ronia to pour the powder into the flask and then shake the flask after corking it until the powder was completely gone. She complied and proceeded with what he said while he continued using healing magic on Ray to keep him stabilized. He was working fast and it looked like he was trying to do something specific with his healing magic, probably trying to isolate the poison or something. I wasn't an expert on healing magic so I just kept speculating while I sat there, unable to do anything to help Ray.

The healer told everyone to move back and to give him some space as we were crowding him, so we moved back and let him do his thing. Ronia finished and handed him the flask, which he put down on the table next to him and continued to concentrate on Ray. He kept working for another minute before pouring a small bit of the mixture into Ray's mouth. He watched for any reaction and continued healing while turning to us and smiling, saying "Don't worry, he's out of immediate danger now. I'll keep working on removing the poison completely."

He worked for a bit more and spoke up in an annoyed tone. "This poison isn't an average hobgoblin assassin poison, which makes this just that much tedious, but you can all leave now. It is merely a matter of time now before he is fully healed. Be sure to bring money to pay for the healing services once you come back to pick him up."

We were escorted out of the medical centre and were told to come back tomorrow around 5:00 pm as they wanted to monitor him for a while after the poison was completely removed and wanted to run some tests. We quietly walked away from there and breathed a collective sigh. Ray was going to make it. We had all been far more nervous than we let on and needed to de-stress after that fiasco. I turned to the others and said "Anyone hungry?" Ronia and Ray looked to me and Ronia nodded her head after a second or two, saying "We can't stay gloomy forever, and besides Rays going to live according to the healer so let's relax a bit."

Herold stopped us and said "We should probably get cleaned up first. We can't exactly walk around covered in blood and undead bits. Let's head to the bathhouse before exiting the gates to the city proper." We walked to a bathhouse and all went our ways to get clean. There were several amenities beyond the gates leading to the dungeon. In order to prevent disease and keep the city clean, there was a bathhouse beyond the gates that adventurers were required to use if they were particularly dirty. There they could either take a bath or simply get hosed down with magic if they were in a rush, which quite a lot of them were. I went in and got my armour hosed down and took a quick bath, cleaning off the grime with a quick shower and then got hosed down and dried with magic. Along with the bathhouse, there was the medical centre we recently visited, there was an exchange area for monster parts set up by the guild. It was there for convenience sake and all of the parts were warped to the warehouses using magic so there was no worry of sorting or transporting the items it seemed.

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I waited outside the bathhouse for a few minutes and saw Herold coming out with Ronia leaving a few minutes after him. We then exited the walled-off dungeon zone and reentered the city. We quickly went looking for food and got some kebabs at a stall as well as some popular juice from another and sat down at a table nearby. We talked about various things, finally letting loose completely. Who knew that a single named monster, not even from a particularly strong race either, would cause so much trouble. We vented about how shitty that monster was and how Herold crunched its chest with his mace, among other things.

Eventually, we finished eating food and decided to head to the guild to sell the stuff we got and hand in the quest. We walked to the guild and made it there in a few short minutes of walking. We waited for our turn and then met the receptionist. She called out "Hello, how may I help you today?"

I replied with "We want to sell some cores we got from the dungeon. We also got rid of that named monster and want to hand in that quest as well."

She smiled and said, "Great, just put the cores right over here as well as your proof of having killed the named monster." She pointed at a large area wit ha magic formation. It was softly glowing blue and was about a metre in diameter. I walked up and poured the cores out of my inventory, a grand total of 97 of them. Gobmi's corpse also flopped onto the formation out of my inventory. With that finished I stepped back and the receptionist pushed a few buttons on a panel near the formation and it started to glow brighter. The cores disappeared as well as Gobmi's corpse. She waited a minute before the panel she was looking at lit up with a message.

She then turned to us and said "Alright, the examiner's finished checking and everything is in order. The cores will fetch you 1 copper per core due to how small they are and the named monster corpse was indeed real, so as per the quest you shall receive 20 silver as compensation. Will that be all?" I looked at the others to check if they had anything they wanted to do but they just said there's nothing else, so the receptionist gathered the money and handed over the 20 silver and 97 copper. I took the money and moved off to the side, out of the way and then split it equally, with everyone getting 5 silver.

As for the 97 copper I was going to start splitting it when Ronia said "Why not give the copper to Ray? What do you guys think?" I said why not and Herold said it was such a small amount he didn't think Ray would care but readily agreed. With that settled We started to head off to do our own things. Herald needed his armour and shield checked for any problems at a blacksmith and Ronia wanted to go shopping for some accessories and talk with the elder about some things, which left me alone for the rest of the day. I kept walking around and saw nothing interesting in the shop windows, or saw things way out of my price range.

"Who the hell would pay 25 silver for a flask enchanted to keep alcohol at just the right condition so it tastes amazing for weeks? That's such a waste of money." I shook my head and continued to walk. I made it back to The Bleeding Crown and sat to talk with Joseph for a bit. I explained about my passive and such and he had a look of surprise but started to think of possible things that could happen. When he heard about the named monster during our discussion he had a look of surprise followed by worry.

I heard him mutter "The last time a named monster appeared on such a low levelled floor there was a monster outbreak." Well shit, that's not good.