"Offerings...not enough...break..."

Iris turned around as she was dressing for the day, slowing down so as not to wake the sleeping Kiayicu. The idol onto which the girl latched seemed to twitch with each word her sleeping mind came up, forever ready to obey its creator.

"Ilis?" A golden eye of a monster opened as Iris was strapping down the latch on her tall butts.

"Shhh, go back to sleep." The risen replied, putting herself between the girl and the small gap between the curtain, from which the sunlight flooded into the room.

"Don't go." The half-awake mage ordered, extending her stick-like arm toward the towering undead.

"But I have to." The elf rested her fingers on the girl's palm willing to entertain Kia for a moment longer.

"I say no."

"And I say yes."

"No plus infinity plus one," The ancient recalled a powerful spell even its creator couldn't beat. "I was first to say it."

"You got me, Kia." Sounding defeated, Iris leaned in closer, causing Kia's eye to shine brightly with a hopeful gaze. "You will stay with me, I guess." She said, causing the kitten's face to grow confused as the risen backed away.

"Huh?"

"I will be thinking of you all day you see, but my legs are carrying me somewhere else." The risen explained as she got further away.

"Ibis?"

"Go to sleep, you need it," Iris walked back into the room and gently held Kia's head in her hands. "I will be back when you return."

The taller raven kissed the girl on her lip and watched as Kia seemed to give in, her head resting ever more against the elf before a soft purr returned to the room. The elf covered the girl before walking out of the building, heading straight to the gate separating the Academy from the rest of the city.

It was a cold morning, and few clouds were above her, their undersides glowing as they reflected the sun slowly creeping from under the horizon. A soft blanket covered the ground and the roofs of the buildings she passed by, with the exception of the onion-shaped roofs of the skinny towers of the sorceress ruling over the Oriripol, from which everything seemed to slip off.

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A soft chime of the tiny copper bell rang as she entered the guild house. Liz was sitting down behind the counter, her fingers wrapped around a mug of hot stuff while a badge proudly glimmered in the candlelight.

"Hi Iris, I have a biz for you." She swung her head to the side waving the elf over, reluctant to peel her digits off the warm cup.

"Biz?" The century-old elf frowned as she came over to the desk.

"Business how did you not know that, don't tell me you are so old?" The puzzled human asked before stiffing under the cold and equally confused gaze of the adventurer. "Never mind, my mind shuts off this early in the morning. I should have been still under my warm and fluffy covers. Fluffy..." With wistful memories of her bed practically materialising above her head in an equally soft cloud, Iris waved her hand before snapping her fingers twice waking up Elizabeth from her nostalgia-filled daydream.

"What is this business you spoke of?"

"The business? Yeah, there were sightings of a strange monster appearing from the sewers. At first, the locals down by the port reported the sightings to the city guards from the House Sandrin. Sandrin soldiers aren't known to chase shadows in the slums but the same stories of people seeing a monster skulking in the dark began to appear all over the city."

"And why are you telling me this?" The elf asked, her eyes turning toward the quest board.

"The quest is so new I haven't had time to write it. It's rated as a silver quest and would pay two silver," The human stood up and began to rummage through the many drawers behind her. "I figured since you are still stuck with quests inside the city limits I would give you a preview."

"What if the monster is something a team of silver adventurers couldn't beat?" Iris asked.

"The pay is only for the tracking part, I'm sure the Guild could buy the proof of its termination for a fair price."

"The monster, it could be a siltspawn coming ashore from the bay or a foglet. How are people sure it resides in the sewers and if where." The tall risen crossed her arms in front of her.

"It's too cold for a siltspawn and both of these are rarely seen in the cities."

"Rarely doesn't mean never." The elf replied.

"Let me rephrase this, siltspawns would have thrown themselves at the docks without any thought and foglets unlike other things lurking in fogs have physical bodies present at all times so first they would have to climb the walls first," The receptionist spoke like a seasoned veteran despite not being one. "Here, these are all records regarding this monster. The guards say it must have made home in the sewers since in only a couple of bells it had been sighted all through the lower city."

"Meaning that it has a reason to move so much or it's not in a habit of creating nests." The copper adventurer's frown deepened as she took a look at the thin folder set in front of her, already imagining the pain of tracking the monster through the labyrinth which was the city sewers.

"I'm not pressuring you to take up this quest."

"I'm simply thinking about where should I start," The elf stopped the clerk from taking away the folder with the monster's description. "Are they all like this?" Iris asked as she had gone halfway through the first page and was confronted with three radically different descriptions of what she was dealing with.

"Not always, sometimes they call a manticore a manticore." The receptionist replied while fidgeting with her foot.

"And they wonder why bailiffs treat them all like liars." Iris commented as she read about the bravery of one person who had managed to strike the creature, collecting a small piece of it.

"Any silver linings?" Elizabeth asked curiously, given that the guild was as empty as a mountain peek Iris couldn't blame her for chiming in from boredom.

"I should have a whole day to find it given that it appears only at night. If I'm lucky maybe I find it in deep sleep."

"Say hi to Siri." The human waved her goodbye as the spear-wielding undead left the Guild.

Iris was stumped as to where to start. She was sure if Kia was next to her she could have come up with a bizarrely sounding plan for how to most efficiently clear out the sewers. Without her, Iris came up with two rather bland plans which gave her a rather overwhelming feeling of choice. She could either enter the sewers through the entrance in the nearby barracks but she cleans that area clean of monsters on the regular. The other option was for her to go to the other side of the city and start where she hasn't been yet.

"Maybe I should take a short visit to one of those brave souls." She said turning toward the skinny towers overlooking the slums.