Elaria was conflicted. She hadn’t planned on opening the loot chests inside the adventurer’s guild. Attracting unwanted attention was definitely something she needed to avoid right now, when her only goal was making it to the capital city unhindered. Originally she’d wanted to take her time and explore the lands of the Erlich Kingdom while slowly travelling to Cloudvale, but she felt as if the last few days were filled with enough action to last most people their entire lives. Not that she was put off from her original goals, just that a short break was in order.
“I don’t exactly feel comfortable opening these here in the lobby,” she replied.
“Aah, if you’re worried about any of the lazy gits in here you can relax, none of them would dare mess with you after seeing me here. Besides, that beastie of yours is enough to keep ninety percent of would-be thieves off your back. Copper chests usually don’t have things worth taking anyway, so just give it a whirl,” Marius assured her.
Well, that was slightly reassuring. Who exactly was this man to have such confidence in himself? He must be a bigshot in the local guild, perhaps the guildmaster? Elaria decided to ask him later. There wasn’t really anything holding her back now and to be completely honest she didn’t expect the rewards to be anything close to what her personal ability had been giving her so without any further hesitation she lifted the lid on the first copper loot chest, wondering whether there would be as much fanfare and special effects as when she used Call of the Treasury.
To her great disappointment, there was only a flash of copper tinged light emitted from the chest and nothing as fancy as a portal that delivered the reward. Inside the small chest was a cushioned base and resting in the centre was her prize, a small pill that looked as if it had been painted by a child, with all the colours of the rainbow splattered about its shiny surface. Elaria took the pill out of the chest, and the wood and copper frame began to dissipate into mana almost immediately. Now that she was able to feel the flow of mana much more viscerally she could begin to understand the process of how things such as loot chests and monster corpses degraded. Rather than simply vanishing into thin air, they were returning to their original form as natural mana. The intricacies of how that worked still eluded her, but she was happy to see herself making progress, no matter how small.
Before she could even analyse the pill with the Chain, the man chimed in and exclaimed, “You are a lucky girl aren’t you, by Varezard! Getting an Any Stat Pill from your first ever loot chest. Usually people get trash like minor healing potions and copper coins in these things. Quick, open the next one.”
Elaria recognised that name, Varezard. He was the god of the wilderness and free will. Bit of a strange mix of domains but a lot of the pantheon in this new realm seemed to be like that. The first time the village chief had told her about a few of the deities she’d been rather confused by the divvying up of divine roles but the locals seemed content with their lot. It made sense for adventurers to worship him, given the nature of their occupation. She opened up the second chest and after the light faded saw a rather unimpressive looking wooden bow. In fact, more impressive than the weapon was the fact that the space inside of the chest was large enough to hold a bow despite only being roughly the size of a dinner plate. Some kind of magical phenomenon she wasn’t educated enough to understand yet, although it was a promising sign that dimensional storage items existed in this world.
Taking the ordinary wooden bow from the box, she gave it a wobble and gently pulled the bowstring. At least it was sturdily made. Elaria had no clue how to use a bow and arrow though, so it would be fairly useless for now. Given the state of her previous weapon, the melted stub of sword currently using her backpack as a grave, perhaps it would be wise to start practising before she encountered more monsters. She was about to store the weapon away in her bag, when the man grabbed it from her hands and brought it right up to his face, scrutinising it all over, before glancing at the empty air to his left and going wide-eyed.
“Either you’re an idiot who invested all their stat points into luck from level 0 or you’ve got the blessing of Cuil. In my fifty years of adventuring I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone receive an enchanted weapon from a copper loot chest. Follow me up to my office, I think we need to have a chat,” he said.
Taking the weapon back from him, she analysed it with the Chain and realised she’d overlooked this plain looking bow. It could actually be a suitable replacement for her sword if she learnt how to use the damn thing. Perhaps reaching 5 points in luck had given her a multiplicative boost. She was beginning to reconsider abandoning her original plan of putting everything into luck. If she got to a high enough level in the stat, what kind of crazy rewards would she be able to get from The Lost Treasury of Tal’Gemud?
Heartwood Bow of Seeking (Rare)
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A finely crafted bow made from a branch of a Heartwood tree. It can be infused with the wielder’s mana in order to imbue magical effects into their arrows. It has been infused with a seeking enchantment that causes the arrows fired from this bow to automatically track their target and change trajectory to follow them.
+1 Dexterity
Storing the bow, she went to follow the man up the grand wooden staircase to the second floor of the guild. She hadn’t been beyond the lobby in any of the guild branches she’d visited so far, although that was limited to just Felspire and Lockmire. He led her down a long corridor, and she tried to peek into some of the rooms that branched off but most of the doors seemed to be closed. They reached the end of the corridor and entered a room the size of her old home in Reissdown Village. That sounded impressive, but her home was just a small hut that had a stove, beds, storage and bath all crammed into a small space. There was a large sash window looking out over the city, and the midday sun flooded the room, bathing everything in a gentle glow.
The office was sparsely furnished, with just a large wooden desk and a few chairs, and a small storage cabinet in the corner. He motioned for her to sit in front of the desk and then opened the window, letting a cool breeze into the room. It was a welcome cool on a hot summer’s day. He then plopped himself opposite, reclining into the only luxury item in the room, a large armchair padded with what looked like blue silk. He opened a drawer on the desk and pulled out a large cigar and a plain silver ashtray.
“Do you mind?”
To be honest, she wasn’t sure if she did. In her previous life she’d smoked occasionally to deal with the stress of a high intensity career and slowly dissolving marriage, but wouldn’t consider herself a smoker per se. Her answer would’ve been yes, but now she was in the body of a child she wondered if it would be unwise to be inhaling all that nasty secondhand smoke. The Chain probably made her body resistant to the kinds of nasty illnesses that tobacco brought, so in the end she just shook her head gently, and he flicked two fingers together producing a small flame which he used to light the cigar. He took a long drag, holding it in his mouth for a moment before exhaling.
“Let me introduce myself properly,” he said, “my name is Marius Quill and I am the guildmaster of this branch of the Teron Adventurer’s Guild. I took an interest in you after Hyuron told me all about how you took down a few hundred goblins by yourself, causing a whopping explosion in the process. Hyuron is the guildmaster back in Felspire, although I don’t think you met him. He’s somewhat of a recluse. I prefer to take a more hands on approach to management, especially when it comes to promising young talents like yourself. I have to ask by the way, what’s your father’s name?”
Elaria was a little taken aback by the sudden personal question. Her original guess had been right on the mark though, the loud, burly man really was the guildmaster here in Lockmire. She was beginning to thank herself for her reckless bravery, because getting this kind of attention was exactly what she was looking for when she set out on her little quest to become a great adventurer. There was no harm in being a little friendly with Marius, having connections with a guildmaster would be great for her future prospects.
“My father’s name is Darius,” she answered.
Marius slapped the table so hard it nearly jumped off the ground, giving Elaria the fright of her life. What was it with this man and beating every piece of furniture he saw?
“Ha! I knew it the moment I saw your name. It makes sense that the daughter of a legend would be on the way to becoming one herself. I actually fought side by side with your dad in the northern wastes back in our heyday. He was almost like a bloody monster himself,” he exclaimed.
Her dad had been an adventurer, and a legendary one at that? She’d always thought he was just a simple farmer. He’d never told her any stories about his youth so she just assumed he’d always lived in the village and led a simple life. It made sense why he had such a beautiful sword to give her, but now she just had even more questions. Perhaps Marius would be able to answer some of them since it sounded like he was friends with her dad.
“That’s news to me! My dad never told me he was an adventurer. Could you tell me a bit about him?” She asked.
“Seriously? I would’ve thought the Duskmoon Slaughterer would be the kind of man to brag about all his deeds to any children he might've had. If your pops didn’t want to tell you himself then I don’t think it’s my place to either, but suffice to say he probably killed more monsters by himself than most of the folk in Teron put together. I’m sure you’ll find out more about him in the future anyway, they still tell stories about him in most of the taverns in Cloudvale.”
Elaria hadn’t expected her father to have such an ominous title. It sort of made him sound like a serial killer rather than a hero of the people. Then again, from the perspective of a monster adventurers were brutal murderers. Not that they didn’t ask for it with their own behaviour. It seemed like every time she was close to having things figured out, the mysteries multiplied and left her feeling lost and helpless. She was having fun anyway, so she would just go with the flow for now and hopefully time would give her the answers she needed. She had a lot to talk about with her dad the next time she visited home.
“Now, why don’t you give me a demonstration of that little explosion skill you’ve got? I’m interested in seeing it myself,” asked Marius with a huge smile on his face.