Aiko woke from another dream about leaves floating on water and islands in the sky. This was the third time this week she had awoken from this same dream and it went back as far as she could remember. She wasn’t sure if she had been having the dream as long ago as the elven village or that half-remembered trek to it but it wasn’t a new dream by any means.
She carefully got out of bed because she could tell it wasn’t daylight outside and she didn’t want to wake Brass up. As she got up, she rolled over in bed and gently stroked one of his long ears before giving him a loving nuzzle on the cheek.
Finally deciding to get fully out of bed she began her morning routine. It was cold in the house because the fire had died down overnight so that was the first order of business. She threw a fur shawl over herself and stepped out the back door to grab an armload of firewood for the hearth and the oven.
She had to force the door open through the snow and the wind was bitingly cold but her fur was thick this time of year anyway, the shawl was more of an afterthought. She loaded her arms full of wood using a trickle of mana into her Chaos Grasp spell then used the spell to haul the rest. She would usually use the spell for the entire chore but she felt she might be getting a little weak since the party hadn’t been adventuring during the harsh winter.
Placing the split logs near the still smoldering remains in the hearth, Aiko gritted her chattering bucked teeth and went to deal with the inevitable. It was time to face her morning ablutions in the cold bathing room. It wouldn’t wait for her to get the house warm.
After settling on the cold seat of the garderobe she used a towelette to clean up. She always felt particularly messy after she and Brass engaged in certain nighttime activities and was eager to get clean but the process was quite chilling, literally. She was pretty sure she saw some ice around the edges of the water bucket. As she sat there, she thought about the summons that she and Brass had received from the city council.
Finished with building up the fires in the hearth, which also heated the bath water tank, and building a fire in the oven to cook on, Aiko began the next chores. The vegetables and meat were set to simmer on the colder edge of the oven and she began cooking the main dish of breakfast, the meat and bread. The starter dough needed to be topped up and the cold boxes full of vegetables needed to be shuffled.
Aiko knew that she was trying to distract herself from the summons letter. She and Brass had been living in the house adjoining the orphanage for years now so everybody knew where to reach them. She wondered idly if they’d gotten ahold of Shumai. The reclusive elven woman was often gone on hunting trips or the like during the winter months.
Refocusing, she told herself that there was no point in avoiding it. The contents of the letter weren’t going to change just because she didn’t want to think about it. She and Brass were going to have to go on this journey for the council. Their party was the most reputable in the region, especially after the whole clearing of the dungeon incident.
Truthfully, that was the whole reason for the summons in the first place. It was probably about the expedition that the Premier was planning. All because of those books.
One of the three books they had brought back was considered to be useless to them so they sold it at a premium to the Premier’s government in Safeharbor. That was the port city where they had killed the crab monster.
The book turned out to be full of arcane knowledge on some kind of math magic that she knew for some reason was called geometry and trigonometry. The larger back portion of the book contained information on building vessels for traversing deep seas and was certainly the reason that the Premier’s people wanted the book.
There was also a book on smithing and metal and the like, Metalmania, whatever that meant. That book had been rented to the various smithies of all the surrounding towns and villages. The book itself stayed in the Prior’s house to keep it safe and the smiths that wanted to rent it had to read it there. The party was paying him a small fee each season to protect the book and handle the transactions. It let the party do their own thing and still make money from the rental of the book. Everyone was happy!
Incidentally, the last of the three books was in their home. It was a large tome containing many fundamentals of magic and magic principles. Appropriately, it was named Introduction To Magic Fundamentals. It had a smattering of spells from several differing magical systems that Aiko could identify. There was only one spell that directly related to her own Chaos Magic. Unfortunately, she already knew Chaos Grasp but it still gave her a few ideas for new spells and her magical repertoire had actually doubled after studying the tome for some time. She had even contributed her method for obtaining her own spells to the book, even though the book said that her Chaos Magic affinity was very rare. Shumai came by often and benefited greatly from it.
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Once the smells of food started infiltrating the now warm house, Everyone started to awaken and the orphan children and the only slightly older caretaker all started streaming in. The caretaker girl, Yonna, admonished her again for not simply waking her to handle all the morning chores. She cited, correctly, that Aiko was paying her to do this sort of thing.
Aiko felt a strange sense of maternal pride for the girl. Girl… She was going to have to stop thinking of her that way since Yonna was older than her by a few years but she always felt older for some reason.
Yonna took over the cooking and started divvying out the chores that needed doing like laundry to the six younger children that lived in the orphanage. There weren’t any goblin children because the goblins were always willing to take in any of their own into another family. It was odd to think that the goblin children that she had rescued a few years ago now had families of their own.
Aiko went back upstairs to wake Brass. They had a meeting to get to this morning. When she arrived, he was already awake and dressed and gave her a nuzzle and a hug before going down to sharpen their weapons while he awaited breakfast.
Aiko hurried to get dressed. Since this was a council summons, she probably needn’t dress in her armor but there was always the chance that they might want them for another type of job right away. Maybe even a monster extermination. Aiko donned her full set of brigandine, a new invention culled from the pages of that smithing book.
She had been gifted a full set of five pieces. The gambeson went all the way from the armored hood down to the reinforced pleats of the long skirt covering her shins. Those were protected by greaves that ended in clawed toes so she could still climb, albeit a little awkwardly. Her sleeves ended at the elbow but were covered by gloves that ended in iron claws also.
The smiths in town were working overtime to try to build the type of furnace shown in the book so they could make the better metals. One they really wanted to create was called steel in the book. If Aiko was honest, she didn’t really see what the difference was but it got the smiths worked up if you said things like that. So, she didn’t.
After enjoying breakfast with Brass, the children of the orphanage, and Yonna, they set out for the council hall. The Town had grown a lot in the last few years and the knowledge that they possessed certainly helped with that. The council had also grown in numbers but the Prior made sure that nobody without the best interests of the people got on the council.
The two of them arrived just after the first warming rays of the sun started cresting over the trees. The Prior’s wife was waiting for them just inside the front parlor. She was an imposing canid woman with a pronounced snout and big bushy ears. Aiko had noticed that she was self-conscious about her half-pink, half-black nose and was careful to never linger too long on her face.
The woman, whom Aiko only knew as Mrs. Prior, led them to the large meeting table in the center of the council house. All the councilors were already there and most of their party was as well. The only one missing was surprisingly Merrill.
Once they were seated at the table, a serving boy came by and put steaming mugs of mulled wine in front of them. The Prior stood and addressed them. “Thank you for coming. Once the last member of your party finishes using the garderobe we will begin the meeting.”
Aiko looked over at Zeyn who was conversing with one of the councilwomen that he very obviously fancied. Too bad she was the type who wouldn’t deign to wipe her feet on an adventurer. She wondered idly if she should warn him about her. It probably wouldn’t matter because they were likely to be sent on this ridiculous journey soon.
A few minutes later, Merrill walked in and upon seeing all eyes on her, she went from a pink to a shade of red. Then she played it off like she was the vulgar type who enjoyed the attention but Aiko had known the imposing and remarkably shy woman for too long to believe a word of her bluster.
The moment that Merrill was seated, the Prior stood again and called the meeting to order. “As everyone here no doubt knows, the Premier is putting together an expedition to sea. What some of you may not know is that this expedition will be compelled to explore beyond the coast and out into the Great Expanse.”
There were a couple of gasps among the newer council members but the party just exchanged glances. “As Prior of Highvalley, I have been asked to persuade you seven to lead the expedition. There will of course be people to crew the ship and several other groups of adventurers to help but you are the most experienced party to be found within a season’s journey in any direction. I have been told to offer you all the leadership of any towns you found or seats on the Premier’s council if you choose to return.”
“The goal of this expedition is not just to explore, it’s to set up an outpost on whatever land you may find. The Premier has read in the accounts of the Nautialis Compendicus that there are many lands beyond the Great Expanse. The pages of that book claim great riches await as well.”
“Will you, the conquerors of the dungeon, accept this quest to explore the far reaches?”