AN: There was a delay in the middle of me writing this, sorry for the slight lateness. I realized the normal adventurer guild ranking wouldn't work for this story, so had to do some impromptu research in the middle. I ended up using the meaning of the trees in Ogham to create the ranking system. This section also turned out much longer than I first planned, as such I'm breaking it into two parts. Part 2 should be out tomorrow or the day after depending on RL. Hope you all enjoy.
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Chapter 7: Parents Past - Part 1
Despite the sleepless night and my continued curiosity, I had to wait until we acquired a carriage to hear the answer to my question.
They told me that it wouldn't do to reminisce while in this situation, and though they were right, I still wanted to know immediately.
This new side of my parents had consumed my mind to the point I barely remember a thing about the small town we got the carriage from.
The buildings were made of wood, the name started with a B, and the road was hard packed dirt, that's all.
As soon as the door closed, I burned a hole in them with my stare until they finally started to spit out the story.
We had 6 days worth of travel by carriage to go through, so when not setting up camp, hunting, or sleeping, I had them fill the time spent in the carriage with stories of their past.
Turns out Connor, my father, grew up in a village similar to the one that was attacked.
Of course, as a youth, he got bored with the peace and quite of rural life; and once he was old enough, headed to a nearby town.
He spent his time hunting for food, selling the skins for pocket-money, until he was spotted by a group of fledgling adventurers.
Being a small, lopsided team of melee fighters, they pressed him to join up with their group for ranged support.
After explaining about the adventurers guild and quest rewards, he readily agreed, and they quickly got him signed up at the guild.
When he joined, they were still ranked as a Birch ranked team, since even though they were beginners they weren't stupid ones.
They realized they didn't have the diversity in their team to be able to take on monsters when fully outnumbered, so they didn't try.
With dad in their party though, they could finally take on something other than beginner quests, and they quickly moved up to Ivy rank from small subjugation quests.
There they were stuck once again, as they were still a bit inexperienced and didn't have the full party needed for the harder quests to reach the next rank.
When I asked about the rankings, he explained that after signing on with the guild, you were given a probationary Birch ranking.
Once you proved that you could finish easy quests within the given conditions, mostly regarding time limits, you would be given full status as a Birch rank.
From Birch, the rankings moved up through Ivy, Elder, Alder, Blackthorn, and Poplar, based on the Ogham Tree Alphabet.
Poplar is considered the pinnacle of what adventurers could aspire to, however, there is one rank above it.
That rank is Oak, and there are only two ways to reach it, which is out of reach for normal adventurers.
The easy way is to receive an achievement that helps the country, such as being pivotal in the downfall of an invading army, being essential in the subjugation of a rampaging dragon, or some similar event, where all you have to do is have a starring role.
The hard way is only available to prodigies, whose number can be counted on a single hand in the last thousand years or so.
In other words, you have to be born with the talent for it, and have the dedication to work your ass off with Oak as the goal.
Even so, it usually still involves surviving some life threatening situation, alone or with your party of 6, that would crush a normal Poplar ranked adventurer or party.
As an example, he told me about two of the Oak ranked from the past, one had subjugated a dragon on his own, which usually takes a small army.
The second was a party, which received the rank after returning from unbelievably surviving an attack against an army of thousands of undead while loosing only one member.
Eventually, they did manage to fix the problem by adding a mage to their party a year later.
With the new firepower, they were able to move up to Elder rank within a few months.
Unfortunately for them, they forgot their caution with the addition of the mage, and continued to push for the next rank.
Quests went well at first, but they soon took on a subjugation that turned out to be too much for their party.
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Thinking their mage's aoe spells would be enough to destroy a nest of Grand Widows, a dire spider version of the black widow that has an armor like exoskeleton, they brashly walked into their lair.
They made good progress at first, igniting the giant spiders, and finishing them with swords while they thrashed in pain.
But soon, they came to a huge chamber in the cave complex, so large, they couldn't see the ceiling, even with the mage floating some light spells.
While defeating the few large spiders that came rushing at them without a worry, everything changed.
From the shadows on the far side of the chamber, a spider twice the size of any they had faced appeared.
They began hearing skittering all around, so the mage sent his lights out around them.
What they saw filled them with horror, not because they were surrounded, as there were only a half a dozen of the giant spiders moving around them.
It was the sight of dozens of Grand Widow corpses covered in webs that terrified them.
That sight told them exactly what the huge spider on the far side of the chamber was.
She was a Grand Widow Queen, and her presence meant the presence of something else...eggs.
With a high pitched screech, the Queen showed her anger, and seconds later, as if in response to her scream, was the sound of many somethings tearing.
Then it began to rain, as baby spiders the size of a full-grown mans head fell from the caves ceiling.
Though they tried their best, they were quickly overwhelmed by the hundreds of spiders raining down on them.
The mage fell first, having no armor to protect it against the venomous fangs of the new-born spiders.
With the fall of their mage, the party tried to retreat, but seeing that, the large spiders charged as well.
They barely made it to entrance they came from, but knowing they couldn't outrun the horde in this cave, one of the melee fighters stayed to block the passage.
The three surviving members returned to town hollow from the loss, sick from the venom, and tired from the exertion.
Upon reaching town, they immediately headed to the healers to cure the poison, and afterword, the downtrodden party split up and went their own ways.
My father told me he roamed around from town to town for a while after that, going back to his day's hunting for food.
Eventually he stumbled into a town that reminded him of his old one, and started staying in its surrounding forest, hunting and trading with the town.
At this point mom took over the story, telling me that it was the town she grew up in.
She said that in those days, Connor's eyes seemed dead, he just walked into town, traded and left, never talking to anyone.
To her, it seemed he wasn't living, but rather just existing, which struck her as odd, she was young and didn't know how a living person could look so dead.
After almost a year of watching him trudging into town on a weekly basis, looking like the weight of the world was on his shoulders, curiosity took root.
Still having enough caution not to run after a man alone into a forest that was known to be dangerous, she quickly extorted two other children into helping her.
"Yeah, she was a mischievous little minx even back then. Oww, OWW, stop it already!" - Connor
My father piped in, just to be smacked...repeatedly, by my mother before she continued the story.
The next time he came to town, her and her two new cohorts followed him into the woods.
Though being too young to have been allowed into the forest previously, and following a skilled hunter, even a mentally dead one, they quickly lost sight of him and got turned around.
After wandering around the forest for what seemed like hours, they were scared and at their wit's end.
Hearing the sound of soft footfalls, they felt a wave of relief, thinking that soft of steps had to be that of the hunter.
The three ran in the direction of the sound, speaking loudly to him, so they didn't startle him if he didn't notice them.
Breaking through some bushes, what they found wasn't the hunter but a wolf.
A grey and white furred wolf, almost as large as the deer it was eating, and from their commotion, it was looking straight at them.
It's gaze freezing them in place from fear, it seemed the world went silent, until they heard more soft footfalls from both sides.