The next morning, at the Adventurer’s Guild…
Noticeboards are filled with all manner of requests, some from the townsfolk of Light’s Hope and others from the Guild. Adventurers, mostly beginners, crowd around these boards to pick and choose what they think they can handle.
Lots of people here today. Like every other day, really. Receptionists have their hands full, as usual. I can’t imagine working here, especially in the morning. I’m already not a morning person by nature, and waking up to deal with hordes of adventurers? No thanks!
But that’s what receptionists do. Without them, it would be even more chaotic and messy. Nothing would ever get done!
Oh, but I’m getting ahead of myself here! The Adventurer’s Guild is a staple of Nisha, with guildhalls available in big cities and small towns alike. These guildhalls are always so prominent, nearly impossible to miss. Aside from offering Guild missions to deal with issues in the local area, each guildhall has an Inn complete with a restaurant and bar. More often than not, the Guild also owns the shops outside that sell supplies and equipment. Most of the gold given out by the Adventurer’s Guild returns to their coffers, one way or another.
Been a while, eh? Being here feels like a nostalgia trip on overdrive! I'm just taking it all in, trying my best not to think about anything else. It’s just good to be back.
I weave through the crowds to get closer to one of the noticeboards to see what’s available. It’s the usual stuff – dungeons to explore, people to help, monsters to kill. Nothing too serious, though! The Isle of Spirits is a place for aspiring adventurers seeking the first steps towards their fortune, after all. Nothing like the frontier towns, where shit’s serious and grim. But even in a sleepy place like this, there's something that always needs doing.
“Arisa!” Anna calls out to me from the entrance. “Over here!”
“Coming!”
I go through the crowd again, linking up with Anna at the entrance where she’s waiting for me. She’s got a Guild Mission picked out from one of those noticeboards I was gawking at earlier, and she’s already had a receptionist do the paperwork to let us be on our way to get things done. That’s honestly… very impressive! Anyway…
“Have a look at this!” Anna exclaims as she presses the Guild Mission into my hands. “There’s a family out in the woods that needs our help!”
“With a Slime invading their home,” I say, reading out loud from the Mission. “Sure, we can do that.”
“Umm… shall we head out now?”
“That Slime is so fucking dead,” I say with a cheeky grin. “Let’s go!”
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In a small house on the outskirts of Light’s Hope…
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Tables and chairs lay broken and filthy, soaked in a viscous mix of green ichor and spilt ale. The air is bloated with the stench of rotten meat and wood.
Good grief. Slimes are nasty fucking monsters! Blind, they’re drawn to the heat of the living, and they kill their victims by smothering them with their ice-cold bodies, slowly sapping the life and strength outta their prey to drain the heat they crave for themselves.
They’ve been here since the beginning. No one, not even the Mages of the Arcane University, knows why or how Slimes came to be. Nature is often magic unto itself, they say. Whatever the fuck that means.
“Arisa, look over there!” Anna exclaims, pointing worriedly towards the kitchen. “That’s…”
Oho! Speak of the devil, eh? Drawn to our warmth, the Slime – a flowing, living river of nauseating green littered with splinters of wood and half-melted animal bones that stick out like spikes, slowly slithers across the floor towards Anna and I.
There are two ways to take out a Slime. Either freeze it solid and smash it to bits, or give it that heat it wants so badly, burning it with enough intensity to vaporise its living ichor. As a Healer and a Paladin, there’s only one way to do it.
“Looks like it’s coming in cold. You know what to do?” I ask Anna as I unsheathe Elizabeth. “You’re thinking what I’m thinking?”
Nodding affirmatively, Anna unsheathes Ascalon.
“We attack together on my Divine Blessing,” I say, eyes upon the advancing Slime. “Take it out in one hit.”
“Okay! Be not far from me, Rinnah...”
With a gentle wave of my hand in Anna’s direction, I bestow my Divine Blessing on her. She readies up Ascalon, and with her eyes glowing white and blue, she rushes at the Slime, swinging at it with her massive, fiery claymore. At that moment, I unleash a wave of Holy Fire, engulfing the Monster in righteous flames.
And uh… it’s over! Our combined attack destroys the Slime utterly, vaporising its green ichor until nothing remains but filthy green stains and the stench of boiled acid. Then again, what was I seriously expecting? It’s just a low-level Monster for a simple Adventurer’s Guild mission. Not much of a chance to hone anything else, unfortunately. We should’ve taken a harder Guild Mission, but they’re all like this on the Isle. Oh well!
Man, if only the Demon Lord would just die so easily! Fucking asshole. Alas, one can only dream that it'd be so.
“No kill like overkill, eh!?” I exclaim with a laugh, pinching my nose momentarily upon catching a whiff of the acrid aftermath of our fiery combo attack. “We fire-fucked that Slime so fucking hard!”
“Fire-what!?” Anna exclaims worriedly. “Umm… that sounds so wrong…”
“We burned that Slime to a crisp, that’s what. Good job, by the way!”
Carefully, Anna looks over the burnt remains of the Slime. And then she looks at me again, her smile turning nervous as she looks past me, and around me.
“Umm… Arisa…”
I look at Anna, dismay fully written all over her face. I look behind and around me at what remains of the living room and the kitchen, catching on quickly to her distress.
“Oh, fuck…” I say, my frown deepening rapidly as I take in the sight of charred green ichor spilt all over the kitchen and living room, a result of both the Slime’s death and all the time it spent crawling around the house before we came here and killed it. “What a mess.”
“Umm… after we report back to the Guild, we should, umm…” Anna adds with a nervous smile, hand upon her cheek. “We should help the family living here clean up!”
“You think so?”
“It’s the least we can do!”
“Sure, why not? Nothing quite like an afternoon of cleaning and sorting…”
“That’s the spirit!” Anna exclaims joyfully, before pouting her lips and crossing her arms. “Sarcasm aside. But umm, Arisa…”
“Yeah?”
“You don’t mind helping out, right?”
“Hmm, well…” I answer coyly. “Can I ever say no to you?”
“Oh! Really now!” Anna exclaims, her cheeks bright red as she presses a hand on them while I laugh myself silly. “Arisa…”
“I mean it,” I say with a warm smile, looking her in the eye. “I’m happy to help.”
In my heart of hearts, I don’t mind this at all. Seriously, I don’t! Sure, cleaning up isn’t my ideal way to spend an afternoon, but after Arcadia, doing almost anything on Nisha feels like a honeymoon.