Over the next few days, Adeleya spoils me with food and cuddles, but that is only when I’m not studying.

I’m studying a lot.

Letters, monsters, and quests. I learn about all the things that are interesting and many more things that aren’t. Alice is trying to get me to learn more about the guild work, all sorts of stuff that I don’t really need to know if I’m just a merc. Still, I listen and learn.

Today, she’s finally given me a test to see how much I can remember, and if I’m able to answer her correctly she’ll put in the paperwork that’ll permit me to be a proper merc apprentice. The ‘paperwork’ has some mysterious power, holding me back from joining their pack and being with Adeleya.

“After killing the targets, you’re supposed to return to the client and have them accept that the job is done, signing this paper.” I find the right sheet of paper from the pile and show it to her.

“Well done,” she says. “Now, I’ll teach you about the different coins.”

“Why!? You said Syr could go out with the others!”

“Syr.” She looks down at me, the same strict voice she uses when she wants me to obey.

“You said I could go out with the others,” I insist.

Alice lets out a long sigh, “You can go with them later, but so long as you’re still here, I’m going to teach you about all the things you still need to learn.”

“Why do I need to learn about coins?”

“Because everyone needs to know about the different values of coins,” she tells me firmly, “Everyone needs to buy something sometimes, and you need to know when you’re getting a bad deal, or when someone is trying to give you bad coins.”

“I can’t go with Adeleya today, though?” I ask weakly, pleading with her.

“Well, I suppose a little experience couldn’t hurt…” She barely finishes saying it when I leap from the room.

“Hey, Syr?” She calls after me, but I pretend not to hear. “Be careful!”

I’ve already packed my bag, leaving it with my adamant sword by the side of the room, I strengthen my body to compensate for the weight and race out of the room.

They’re all heading out on a hunting quest today, and they’re leaving soon if they’re not gone already. Diving out the door and into the main room, I catch sight of them just as they’re about to leave.

“Wait up!” I cry out, sprinting up to them.

“Syr?” Nadia turns, “I thought you were still studying with Alice.”

“I’m done!” I tell her, “She said I could go with you.”

“Really?” Theo asks, his growling voice low and heavy. He looks over my head towards Alice who’s coming down the stairs.

“Yes, she shouldn’t cause you any problems,” Alice says, letting out a long sigh.

“Very well,” Theo nods, accepting me. I try to keep from shivering in excitement. I’m finally going to be part of their group.

“Well done!” Adeleya congratulates me, rubbing her hand through my hair.

“You all be careful out there,” Alice tells us before she turns back to her work.

“We’ll take care of her,” Theo says before turning to our team. “Times wasting, let’s be off.”

As we trudge through the town, I call Sandy down to settle on my shoulder. She’s been resting on the rooftop until now, high enough away that no one can look at her too closely. We still earned a few interested glances, but as Nadia said, everyone just thinks that I’ve gotten good at taming animals.

Sandy coos while rubbing her head against mine, I give her a gentle pat which she was desperately after.

Lothar intentionally looks the other way; he’s still not come around to my necromancy. The others don’t like it, but they’re not bothered by it quite as much, Adeleya even leans in to give Sandy a pat as well.

“Are you excited?” She asks me.

“Yes, I’ve wanted to go with you since we came to Snowspring.” It’s been a whole season and finally they’re letting me come with them. I’m a part of the pack now. I’m strong enough to be by their side. Of course I’m excited.

“Do you know what our quest is?” She asks.

“It’s something about killing mite swarms.” Mites are small black monsters of some sort, far too small to usually be seen. On their own, they’re unnoticeable and can’t do much. Unfortunately, they’re never on their own.

Large swarms of these mites are known to attack and completely shred small creatures down to nothing. Thankfully they’re uncommon and usually found fairly far from human towns, but they are very dangerous if you anger them. The one time I stumbled across them in the wild, I had good enough instinct to stay away.

“Yes, but there’s more to it,” Adeleya says. “The person who hired us owns a silk spider farm. The contents of the quest said that some of their spiders were going missing, and he suspects that mite swarms are to blame. He’s hiring us to kill off the mite swarms and destroy their nests, but that’s not all.

“Though it’s not a necessity for completing the quest, it’s important to find out what happened to their spiders. If it isn’t the swarms then the farmer is going to be in trouble, so we want to do everything that we can to help him.”

“Okay,” I reply, understanding her. “So, we have a lot more to do than just killing monsters.”

I’ll be awesome, I’ll show them all what I can do. I’ll prove that I can be the greatest merc, even if I’m a necromancer. I’ll prove that they can trust me; that I should stay with them.

“Yes, we have to ensure that our clients are successful in their own endeavours, as mercs of the Falchion company we support and protect the people. Today, we help a young entrepreneurial farmer. The quality of our clothes depends on our success.” She takes a firm stance, gazing into the distance heroically.

I nod. This is very serious, we must win.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

“Come on you two,” Theo calls back, “This is a quest just like any other.”

“Except this time, it’s personal,” Adeleya says.

“If you say so…” He grumbles.

We talk as we walk, there aren’t as many dangerous beasts this close to town, but we’re still looking around just to be careful. The spider farm is just a few hours away at our speed, but about halfway there we cross paths with another traveller who waves us to a stop.

“How goes your travels?” Theo asks as we near the strange traveller.

“Quite kindly, smooth roads and no monsters,” the stranger, an elf by the look of it, replies from within his dark, hooded robes. “You seem to be mercenaries, perchance you know this region well?”

“Indeed, if it’s Snowspring you are searching for, then it lies but a few hours ahead of you. Otherwise, I’m sure you could borrow a glance at the guild maps to aid you.”

“Thank you kindly,” he smiles but makes no move to leave, “I would yet ask you, especially those of you who are æther sensitive, for what might not be marked. Would there be any æther wells in this region, I would be willing to pay a good sum if you could mark any on my map.”

“Æther wells?” I ask Adeleya quietly but it is the stranger who replies.

“You are unfamiliar with the term, little elf?” He asks leaning down to speak with me, “I’m simply speaking of those places where æther flows more freely, you might consider it like an æther vein of the world itself. I seek particular herbs and plants that grow in such places.”

Theo is silent a moment, looking at the stranger with the cautious gaze of a predator, “You are an alchemist?”

“Among other things,” the stranger replies with a soft smile.

Theo looks back to the rest of us, but none of us have a thing to say. I’m still unsure as to what an æther spot might look like.

“I’m sure you’ll have better luck in town,” Theo replies to the man. “Do excuse us, we have a quest to see finished.”

“Thank you for your time, I will be in Snowspring for a short while. Don’t hesitate to find me if you find out anything,” he says flipping a small coin to Theo, “For your time.”

“Strange man,” Nadia mutters under her breath as he walks the road toward Snowspring.

Theo doesn’t reply, gazing at the back of the elvish man, before seriously looking down at the coin in his hand.

“Let’s hope it’s nothing…”

“What do you mean?” Lothar asks.

“Cildr. It’s the only æther well of meaningful size in this region,” Theo says seriously. “Everything keeps coming back to that village.”

“We should tell Alice when we return,” Nadia says. “If he’s involved in… in anything that happened there.”

“Then we might be in for more trouble,” Theo says, nodding to himself.

I still don’t get it, but the strange traveller might be involved with the bandits?

The rest of the walk is a little quieter until we arrive at the spider farm, Theo turns to me and speaks in a firm voice.

“Listen carefully and don’t speak. If you have anything to say, whisper it to one of us first.”

I nod in response, and Adeleya takes my hand as if to reassure me.

We head onto the property, along a short distance before finding a young man leaning on a staff in apparent frustration. He stands in front of what looks to be a massive shed, staring at a line of tall metal cages filled with spiders, each one as tall as my knee with its legs reaching out as far as my own do.

“Are you the one who requested us?” Theo asks, walking up to him.

“Yeah, that I am,” he replies. “I’m glad to have you here so quickly. I’ve been up all night watching over the little ones, and I hope to have this dealt with soon.”

In the surrounding landscape, a group of spiders are trapped in a series of wooden stocks. The spiders try to struggle but they can’t grasp onto anything with their legs. A little winding mechanism spins behind them, drawing out the silk that they produce.

It’s kind of creepy.

“In that case, I’ll get to the point,” Theo says. “Why is it that you think the mite swarms are to blame for your missing spiders?”

Clearly tired, the man shakes his head, “It’s the only idea I could come up with, we’ve been breeding spiders here since the day Snowspring’s walls were raised, and we’d occasionally get a bothersome swarm cause us problems.”

“So, you haven’t seen it in the act?”

“No, I haven’t, but there are some around at the moment and a bit close for comfort,” the farmer explains. “If you wouldn’t mind, could I leave this all in your hands? I need to get these little ones off of the machines before the winches pull their guts out.”

Theo nods before turning to us.

“Adeleya, you and Syr will be taking care of the babysitting. Keep watch on the spiders, and investigate alternative theories; if it’s not mites then we want to know. Lothar, Nadia, and I will go scouting the nearby swarms and nests.”

“Got it, boss,” Adeleya replies.

“We’re out then,” Lothar replies. “It’s been a while since we’ve taken on any swarms.”

“Not long enough,” Nadia replies, “Damn things are near impossible to deal with.”

“Shoot the sky if there’s trouble,” Theo says, waving back at us.

“Why are we staying?” I ask Adeleya in a whisper.

“You know how we were talking about the details of the quest before?”

“Yeah, I know. We need to find out why the spiders are disappearing, but if there was something here, wouldn’t that man who runs the place already know about it?” I ask.

“Maybe there was something that he missed, but more than that, what if there’s a swarm hiding nearby, and it takes more of them while we’re off hunting?”

“Oh, so we’re protecting them. Like guards.”

“Pretty similar but there’s more to it as well. While we guard the place we also need to try and figure out anything we can about the missing spiders. So we’re more like reeves investigating a murder,” She says, walking me over to the farmer.

“Can we talk?” She asks, her voice a little sweeter than usual.

“So long as I can keep working.” He replies, “I need to get these little ones back into the pen.”

He lifts the wooden stocks off of a spider, about half a metre long, before picking it up and walking it to a cage.

“How do they usually behave? They seem unusually calm.” She asks, “I expected them to be climbing the walls, like, literally.”

“Ah, haha, most people come here thinking that. To try and farm them like that you’d have to be a madman.” He chuckles as he gently places the spider into a little cage. “No, we feed them this. It’s… well, technically, it’s a poison.

“A specially produced berry, it calms them down and encourages them to produce more silk.” As he continues moving them, I notice a slightly larger cage where a half dozen spiders are running about excitedly.

“What about them?” Adeleya asks, following my eyes.

“Oh, them?” He looks over at the maddened monsters. “They’re the breeders. I bought this new species of spider and I’ve been trying to crossbreed them, but I haven’t had any success.”

“The new silk?”

“You know about it?” He asks before looking her up and down, “I suppose you do, I’m glad to see my silk being used well.”

“And I’m glad that you’re making such good products,” she says. “On that note, your current thought is that a swarm slipped by a few cages?”

“It’s the only thing I can think of. The cages are properly sealed, and there were no bodies. Can you think of anything else that might do something like that?”

“Nothing comes to mind,” Adeleya responds, glancing down at me.

The spiders move terrifyingly fast, I wouldn’t want to cross them in the wilds. Especially if there were a whole swarm of them.

“In that case, we’ll be just here. Call out to us if you see something,” she tells him.

The man looks at me for a moment, but I’ve already gotten used to the strange looks people give me. Apparently, I am a ‘strange, little elf’. Or so everyone says.

“So, look for swarms?” I ask.

“That too,” She tells me before looking over the breeding spiders. “If it’s not too much, could you watch these little guys especially closely?”

“Is there something Syr needs to look for?”

“Just watch them for now, I doubt it’s what I’m thinking, but it doesn’t hurt to keep a close watch.” I nod to her before sending Sandy over to perch on a tree overwatching the cage, I make certain that she can see all of the spiders moving around inside and order her to keep watching.

“Why didn’t they take you out to deal with the swarms?” I ask Adeleya while on watch, “Fire magic works the best with them, doesn’t it? With your magic…”

“Simple, swarms actively communicate with each other. Kill one, and the rest will know. It becomes very difficult to deal with them,” she explains while gazing over the forest line. “Instead, Theo’s planned to use baits to gather them, and special scent bags to aggravate them.

“Right now, the rest of the team is out scouting for nests, after that we’re going to gather all the mites together and blow them all away with my magic,” she explains.

“But what if something goes wrong?” I ask, “Wouldn’t it be safer with you there?”

“Swarms aren’t too dangerous to people unless you’re really trying to piss them off.” She explains, “So the others aren’t in much danger. In fact, it’ll only start getting dangerous when I start using my fire.”

Her explanation makes sense, and it’s far more detailed than the short descriptions in the books that Alice gave me to work with.

As we sit there, trying not to get too distracted, I focus on the caged spiders that Adeleya is having me observe.

“Do you think Syr could get one?” I ask, “Fang, would be a good name.”

“Nope.”

“But-”

“No. Zombie. Spiders.”