Well then! Now that I’m out and about, it’s time to get down to business on the necessary fronts. The necessary fronts being… let’s get the tally real quick.
Fix my sword or get a new one.
Go out and stab things (permanent task)
…Uh huh, that’s actually a rather small amount of necessary fronts to be honest! I guess I could also look into getting new armor, but with my admittedly already tight funds (literally zero), that might be a bit much to ask of the present moment.
Wait, isn’t getting my sword fixed also a tall ask in that case? I know there’s a blacksmith in this place, down on the…
Oop, taking a glance down certainly isn’t the best play, let’s shove that sensation down as far as we can possibly manage. Ahem, down on the lower layer! So it’s certainly possible to get a weapon or something similar, but that will probably cost… something. I know I have potions on me, but I can’t expect everybody to be cool with taking them as payment.
I was lucky with the woman at the inn allowing it, but nobody is obligated to take that as a trade. Barter seems to be a commonality as a whole with this game, given I could pay for potions with materials and food and board with potions, but I’m not sure if that’ll extend to every single purchase you can make. I imagine it works on a smaller scale, but if I wanted to look into getting a weapon made, as opposed to just buying one off the shelf like I did back in Resiala, it’d probably cost a little more.
Therefore, I suppose there are three things to work on!
Fix my sword or get a new one.
Go out and stab things (permanent task)
Go out and take quests!
It’s not like there’s a glowing yellow marker or anything over an npcs head, but back in Resiala I could find a fair few obvious npcs. Some were standing around looking worried, others were standing at a board contemplating something… wait, a board for what exactly? I know I found it interesting when I looked at it…
What was it…? A board, a request board… dah, a QUEST board, obviously! I just didn’t need it because I already had quests by the time I saw it. There isn’t a quest limit, so that might’ve been somewhat silly of me, but oh well. I have the knowledge of that thingamjig for the now, the present day!
So, let’s cast our sights away from the floor, up and into the sky! Or more accurately, away from the cracks in the floorboards.
Not like, actual cracks, dear GOD I would not have stayed up here if they were actually that unstable, but little crevices that nothing could possibly slip through, absolutely nothing, that’s for sure, which allowed peeks at the ground far, far below.
Now… looking away from that, where exactly is that quest board?
There aren’t too many people strolling around, and buildings aren’t exactly plentiful, so it shouldn't be difficult to spot, but… unfortunately, this whole game-plan unfortunately doesn’t seem to work the best right off the bat.
I walk around, keeping my chin up as best as I can, dipping through and around crowds and buildings, trying to eye up as much of this city in the sky that I can, and yet… there is simply no convenient board to be found. That’s like, mildly annoying, so I suppose I’m going to have to pay this whole thing a little more attention.
“Jasper? You didn’t happen to notice anything of… interest?”
“...Mmm?”
Yeah, that’s fair, there’s a lot of things of “interest” if you really think about it.
“...I did.”
Wwwwwwwwwhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaa Jerry speaking UNPROMPTED?
“Y-you did?”
“...Y-yes.”
“Well…” I think it over for a moment, not wanting to come off too harshly to the already very reserved mini-griff. For the first time, they’re the one actually initiating a conversation??? Hah??? I don’t wanna mess this up! “What did you notice?”
“...You… had no money, r-right?”
“Have, have no money, but yes. And… what about it?”
“Mhm… you spent most of it on… those two,” he says whilst clearly referring to Jasper and Screech. “...And me. So, clearly you’d need more money after the fact.” He says with a bit more confidence, finally picking up steam, which I have no intention to interfere with!
“Mhm!” I nod enthusiastically, urging him to continue.
“So, I thought about it for a moment… and what you were doing while with those other people by the wagon was… sort of similar to a Adventurer’s work, right?”
…That’s a thing? And more importantly, Jerry knows that’s a thing? That’s… weird, isn’t he just a random common monster? They know stuff like this? Shouldn’t he like, by all means, not know anything about human society? Or did the developers just not bother programming something annoying like that into the game?
I mean, I guess I wouldn’t exactly be surprised. So far their development philosophy has been fast and furious. I heard the same about Heaven’s Gate, their prior smash-hit success… It was really a break-away from the “meta” of crazy grind, so crazy it kind of even pushed me away… to the lesser evils that were grindy games of like, thirty years past. Or well, so I’ve heard. I never played Heaven’s Gate myself, but pretty much only heard good things about it, so… what can you do!
If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
Anyways, I’m getting sidetracked here, Jerry has important things to say!
“Mhm, you’re not wrong. What about it?”
“Well… I… saw a sign that said ‘Adventurers Guild’ in the distance, and I…”
“Really???”
They actually added such a trite trope? REALLY? An adventurers guild! In 2085?! Holy crap!
“I can’t believe that actually exists!”
“...”
“Oh, uhm, please continue, I greatly value your opinion.”
“Uhm…”
Dahhhh, damnit. One step forward two steps back.
“...Nevermind, it’s fine, it’s fine. I get the gist of it, you saw a building with the sign on it that I missed, thank you Jerry, your feedback is invaluable. Please, feel free to speak your mind in the future.”
At this point I don’t even really want to sell him, I kind of want to crack the proverbial shell here and get him to open up, even if his prospective benefits aren’t that great. Call it that achievement hunter in me raring to go. Zeroing in on pointless things like that is just in my blood man.
Well… I DO need money, so…
“Where did you say that sign was…?”
“...”
“Ehhhh forget it, I’ll find it myself.”
—
Okay, now THIS is stereotypical adventurer guild 101. Holy crap, it’s like, reconstructed down to the atom dude! It’s so utterly generic down to the dark shady tables in the back of the room that it’s not even generic anymore because nobody MAKES Adventurer Guilds this generic! Take a picture from a manhwa from sixty years ago and a picture of this room and you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference save that one of them are drawn while the other is in 16k HDVR.
Well… in that case, I guess everything should be pretty easy to understand as well then. I can see a receptionist at a desk further into the building, so that’s probably to sign up or do whatever, but there’s also already a quest board. Do I need to bother signing up to take one…?
Cannot take adventurer quests without being an adventurer!
Taking a glance at the board, the answer to that would be a firm no. And now, I’m getting odd looks from a bunch of the-what-I-assume-to-be-locals! That’s not great, that’s not great at all!
Alright, alright… let’s just hope the Guild doesn’t have a fee to join, otherwise that'd be mildly annoying. So, let’s just ignore all these odd looks, and take a stroll riiiight on over to that there desk.
“Hello,” I start off, approaching with as friendly a smile as I can muster.
“Hello,” the lady-wait a minute, no, sorry, prejudice. It’s actually not a woman at the counter! It’s a guy! That’s one thing that differs from the stereotypical room I suppose!
“Have you come to sign up for a Guild license?”
Huh, alright, save me the trouble of having to ask I suppose.
“Mhm, I needed to make some cash and have the abilities to put to use, so, you know.”
“I see, I see. Well, give me one moment to get the proper identification items will you?”
Having absolutely no clue what that means, I nod politely and stand there as the man rises from his chair to go fetch something from the backroom, opening the door behind him and leaving me be.
“...What do you think this identification item is?”
“MmM.”
“Screech?”
“mimimimimimimimi”
“Oh, right.”
What is their stamina at right now anyways?
79/121
Alright, not awful, they should be good to go soon enough. So a one hour nap or so is about enough to fully recover their stamina. I can work with that.
“Right, thank you for being patient sir, if you’ll please place your hand on the stone?” The man asks with a shining smile, placing a small spherical object on the desk.
So it’s like… an appraisal stone? I guess they don’t want random level ones signing up for something, so… yeah, sure, here we go.
Placing my hand upon the stone, I wait for it to like, project my stats or something, but a moment later… it glows the faintest bit red instead. Mostly grey, but still, it brings with it a visible shade of crimson.
“...Negative ten.”
“...Scuse me?”
“Security!”
Oh, well that’s probably not great.