The Redclouds’ headquarters in Esharia proved a much wider building than tall. Tahir found it more welcoming than the mage’s collective, though walking into the building nearly every day for the past year might have had something to it. All manner of mercenaries and adventurers made their fortune by plying their trade here. From the humble bronze ranked rookies, to the silver ranked like Tahir who made up the bulk of its members, to gold, platinum, mithral and the mythical adamantine ranked members who fought against nation or world-shattering events. Or at least, supposedly they did. He’d never seen an adamantine ranked member, but even if he hadn’t, a public visit from one to the guild HQ would be a talking point for weeks to come. He could, however, attest to the strength of the mithral members.
When he joined the guild, before even unlocking mana or aura, he’d been tricked into sparring with a mithral guild member and found himself on the ground before he even registered that the fight had started. An almost unfathomable gap existed between mithral guild members and even the gold members two ranks below them. They were truly something else.
Tahir made his way into the building, returning greetings from people he recognized and had worked with, in the past. He headed straight for the job board, eager to find something in the collection of silver requests to test his newly bound spirits on.
The sight of the bulky frame of someone familiar observing the board made him think he might be able to shoot for something better. “Hurida! Just the half-orc I wanted to see.”
Having heard her name, Hurida turned her head back to Tahir and waved in greeting. “If it isn’t my favorite lackey. You here to look for work today as well?” Her other hand rested on her belt, from which hung her golden pocket watch from the Redcloud guild. “I already have one picked out.”
Hurida worked as a career gold ranked member of the Redclouds. The average rate, a general minimum given any special circumstances, for a gold mission was 100 gold pieces. The recommendation for missions was either one member of the mission’s rank or higher, or at least four members of next lowest rank. A gold mission would normally warrant four people at Tahir’s level. Hurida, being of gold rank, could reasonably take on gold missions by herself.
With a lack of concern for the pay, as even half of it could keep someone in comfortable conditions for over a month, and Tahir suspected a desire for a layer of safety, Hurida liked to team up with other guild members and split the pay. Unlike many who would consider it babysitting, Hurida didn’t care if the members were silver. Tahir took to working with her whenever he could. Silver jobs only paid an average of ten gold, it only made sense to him to work and make five times that with someone who could reasonably handle most of the requests herself.
Hurida used aura, which for the most part only affected the user, so she considered Tahir and his magics extremely useful, even if minor compared to a gold ranked mage. “Great, saves me the time of looking through the board. I’ve even got a couple new tricks I want to try.” Tahir came prepared to get straight to work. A shortsword sheathed on his right side, a wand holstered on his left, and a myriad of useful tools in between. Hurida, a much more physical fighter, wore a breastplate and carried a two-handed warhammer. The two of them confirmed the details of the job before setting off.
“Say, Hurida. Have you ever gotten your fortune read?” A carriage ride to the edge of Balrech and a brisk walk through the countryside later, Tahir and Hurida made their way to their destination. A farm on the edges of the cultivated farmland outside of Esharia’s capital and the forests that dominated the landscape.
The Half-orc glanced his way and grinned. “Psh, no. For what? Did you have someone look to the stars for your love life?” It’d been a couple weeks since they last worked together, so they caught up on the walk.
That got a laugh out of Tahir. “Okay, no, but that was something she brought up.” He replied. He hadn’t talked to anyone about his recent troubles. Partially to not have anyone worry, but also because he wanted to try to solve the problem he’d created for himself. While he had the time, still about a month leading up to the deadline to the sponsorship. “I went to see if I had any affinities for magic. Or aura. Would have helped if I could pivot and start using some of those spells. But I got nothing. I’m dreadfully average.”
“At the very least, you got a good head on your shoulders.” Hurida offered. “You use what you’ve got well enough. An’ good equipment will make up for a lack of affinity.”
Tahir nodded. Traditionally, the uses of basic wands and staves for mages helped in directing their magic while they learned to use it. Wands and staves with special materials could actually aid in mana efficiency, almost like an external affinity. With the right wand or staff, and especially with an affinity, it gave the impression that some mages had a bottomless mana pool, when really their mana pool could recover faster than they could drain it using those spells.
The wand he used gave him about one or two extra casts of the spells he used before his mana pool ran out. It was a tremendous boon, but even that much had cost him 150 gold pieces, and better wands and staves easily went into the thousands in terms of costs, so he had to make due with what he had. Of course, a better wand or staff would only help so much if his mana pool continued to grow at a snail’s pace.
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“It was worth the gold either way, but I couldn’t help hoping that I’d have an affinity in some crazy useful magic. Or some aura technique that I’ve yet to learn.”
“It’s probably better to be equally bad at everything.” Hurida said, clapping Tahir painfully on the back. “If you got something you hated using then you’d be stuck with it, right? I can’t imagine you as a necromancer, or a blood mage. Even if you decided not to, you’d always feel like you’re working against yourself.”
“Well when you put it that way, I guess I am lucky I didn’t get something like that. Thanks Hurida.”
“My consultations ain’t free. You can carry any loot we get back with us.”
Much as Tahir cringed at the thought of hauling heavy cargo, he doubted they’d find anything of value for this job, as it was essentially guard duty. According to the listing, wild animals and monsters had been emerging from the woods. With the hiring farm basically on the edge between the farmland and the woods, they wanted people to protect the livestock. While minor monsters and wild animals would generally be the jurisdiction of silver guild members, a massive hole had been found in the fence that separated the farmland, and some of the livestock at this farm had been found violently torn apart, in a manner that indicated that a gold - or at least several silver ranked members would need to deal with it.
Tahir and Hurida had barely gotten to the fenced off edges of the farm after speaking to the owners before they heard rustling coming from the nearby woodlands. He had a feeling it was gonna be a long day.
###
Tahir rolled to the side, dodging out of the way of a boar as large as him threatening to run him down. He recovered and reached for his belt, pulling out a throwing knife, and tossed. The boar skidded to a stop, and the knife struck in the process of it turning around. It staggered, gathering itself before starting another charge. The couple seconds it took to recover from the knife gave Tahir the time he needed for his spell.
Like an arrow from a bow, a ball of fire the size of his head launched toward the boar. It struck the boar, causing it to squeal out in pain and collapsed in a burning heap. It grew still seconds later, aside from the occasional twitch.
“Hope boar meat doesn’t count as loot.” He muttered, approaching the remains of the boat to retrieve his knife. He heard the heavy footsteps of Hurida nearby, and glanced her way while he cleaned off the knife. She didn’t look any worse for wear, but Tahir expected that. She’d have to be seriously handicapped to even be mildly inconvenienced by a boar.
One’s aura, after they unlocked it, had three basic uses. Becoming a shield against harm to the body, physically strengthening it, and aiding in recovery. Anyone who could manipulate aura learned those three, but more unique techniques using aura existed. Hurida couldn’t do anything special with aura, but as a Captain ranked aura user, her strength greatly exceeded that of the boars, and she could likely take multiple full charges from them before her aura shield ran out.
Tahir on the other hand, managed to get to the Adept rank right when his growth really started to slow down. Technically only one rank below Hurida but the rankings themselves, while widely used by guilds and scholars, were only loose approximations of power level. His aura shield would protect him from one of her punches at best before it shattered. It’d still hurt like hell, though.
“You alright, Tahir?” Indeed, Hurida looked like she’d barely broken a sweat. A group of the boars rushed through the fence while they were guarding, and Hurida had drawn most of them away while Tahir dealt with a couple of them on his own.
“Just fine. Not a scratch on me.” He assured her, then looked down at the boar. “This is strange though. Even boars have a sense of self preservation most of the time. Charging in like that and not running even after you cut the first couple down-”
“Ain’t normal by any stretch. I know.” Hurida walked over and knelt down beside the boar, examining its remains. “Thought it looked like they were running away from something when they came stampeding out of the woods. But once they saw us it was more like they were frenzied.”
“Think it might be some kind of magic?” Unless it was primal magic, inherent to the earth rather than pulled from the formless void or channeled from a divine source, animals typically avoided or had adverse reactions to magical effects. A magical creature, or gods forbid a rogue mage or group of them could feasibly cause such reactions, if they weren’t just using magic on the animals themselves.
“Maybe. It’s out of our pay-grade either way. We’ll just report it when we get back and let the guild…” She trailed off, placing her hand and the ground and staying very still. “Feel that?”
Tahir got down to one knee and placed his hand on the ground nearby. He didn’t feel it immediately, but sure enough, tremors in the ground reverberated through his fingertips. Seconds later he could hear the rumbling steps, coming from the direction of the forest. The two of them stood and drew their weapons, watching the forest intently. Before long, he could make out a tall silhouette emerging, making its way through the hole in the fence it had presumably created.
The creature stood at least ten feet tall, nearly twice Tahir’s height. Its pale green skin was covered in scars, and Tahir spotted long claws and sharp fangs from its maw, which it revealed in a throaty growl that he could hear from several feet away. One of several monsters that Tahir had read about but certainly never hoped to encounter while he was a silver ranked Redcloud. A troll, in all its hideous glory, and it looked absolutely ravenous.