After explaining the concept of therapy to a very confused Magira, Cain was running out of energy for all these conversations. He’d been deprived of sleep, put through at least a solid hour of nothing but paperwork, asked for directions several times, gone shopping, and then had to hold an involved conversation with Magira. He wasn’t annoyed by her, though — in fact, he’d somewhat enjoyed talking to her so far. He just wasn’t able to handle past a certain amount of socializing after so many years of avoiding it whenever possible.
Stifling a yawn, Cain contemplated what he’d do with the rest of his day. He didn’t want to go to sleep while it was still light out, or his sleep schedule could start shifting towards a nocturnal pattern. Magira was looking through what he’d bought, taking stock of their supplies. He’d checked with her after they moved on from the topic of therapy, and she didn’t have any better ideas for earning a living than joining the Adventurer’s Guild. That meant he’d probably have to go talk to someone at the front desk and inquire after membership, which would require more conversation. He’d save it for tomorrow if he could.
Membership… he still had the R-something Trading Company membership card to check. That Dursley lady said it should be in the pouch they gave him, right? He got up off the floor and walked over to the desk, picking up the leather pouch he’d set down on it before taking his bath. After tugging the drawstrings loose, he plunged his arm in and — nearly lost his balance. It’d come up during his shopping, so he’d been expecting it to happen, but something about stuffing his entire arm down a small pouch still threw him off. After a few moments of fishing through the small mound of remaining coins in the bottom — 2 silver, 33 iron, and 30 copper — he found the odd one out. A rectangular wooden slat was nestled in the pile of metal, making it a quick affair to find and pull it out.
It was a blank wooden slat.
Cain turned it around. It was not a blank wooden slat.
‘Rezedal Trading Company
Account Holder: Cain Égalis’
It was a simple design. The words were shallowly carved into the center longways. On the left was the same coin emblem he had seen on the door, and on the right was a small triangular formation of runes. The wood was the same white-oak color from the Flutewood. Cain was rather underwhelmed; the card looked pathetically easy to fabricate. Even the runes were very easy to make out; he could distinguish the patterns just by running a finger over them. Maybe even without doing so, with the help of Self-Awareness.
Then he actually did run a finger over the runes, and felt a bit of mana get siphoned out of it. Now, when he focused on his mana sight, he could see a small amount of his mana tracing the runes. But then… nothing happened. The mana just sat there. Why did it do that? Wait… if the door lock works by recognizing the mana structure of the key, maybe these work by ‘imprinting’ my mana and using it to ID me. That would explain why the mana wasn’t being used for anything, and why so little effort was put into anti-counterfeit measures.
[ Skill Manifested : Insight (Lesser) ]
Grants the entity a basic innate knowledge of a non-living foreign entity’s inner workings and function. Effect scales slightly with scrutiny. (1 SL)
Cain briefly acknowledged the skill. It seemed like it would be useful, and also informed him about the ‘scrutiny’ attribute — likely the counterpart to obscurity. However, he was more concerned with what this meant for the Adventurer’s Guild. Was there any chance he would just be able to use a mana signature to register, rather than filling out a stack of paperwork? But he also knew precious little about what was possible with magic. He had no doubt a mana signature could be used to identify him, but could one be used to track him as well? Cain then remembered how he’d bound the slave crest. By marking it with his blood. He’d already observed that the highest concentration of his mana was flowing through his blood — did slave crests function by imprinting the owner’s mana onto the slave? And if mana was susceptible to will, was that how the crest enforced commands? By detecting the owner’s will?
[ Skill Refined : Insight (Lesser -> Middling) ]
Grants the entity a basic innate knowledge of a non-living foreign entity’s inner workings and function. Effect scales with scrutiny. (2 SL)
“Is everything alright? You seem worried about something.”
“I was just… working out how this rune structure works. Can you tell me briefly… how does a slave crest work?”
“Oh… you remember how you smeared your blood over the crest to transfer ownership, right?”
“Yeah.” His stomach twisted into a knot.
“Well, the crest used the mana in your blood to recognize you as my owner. It can use that to recognize when you give me commands. It can’t technically make me follow them… but it can hurt me if I disobey.”
“I’ll… try to never do that, then.” Cain hated being right.
“I appreciate it,” said Magira. At least she seemed to have relaxed some.
Cain sighed and dropped the card back into the pit from whence it came. Magira went back to inspecting the knives. It was good that he knew how it worked now, at least. Not that it makes it any less unsavory. At least on Earth people could stand up for themselves. With slave crests, resistance was almost impossible once you were marked. Finding out how to nullify or remove the slave crest was going high on his list of priorities, then.
He was out of things to do again, though.
----------------------------------------
Cain walked down the stairs resignedly. He’d taken the opportunity to try on his new cloak, since he was sure his new aspects would draw some awkward attention. It was weighty, but in a comfortable way; he liked it. He wanted to just stay in his room and relax, but wasting time was a luxury he couldn’t afford when it was more than just his future that would suffer for it. Magira was entirely dependent on him for food and shelter at the moment. He turned left down the hallway and counted the intersections. Finding his turn, he rounded the corner and started down the second set of stairs. One of the employees sorting through paperwork in the back waved to him. He nodded back and continued towards the front desk. As he approached, he took note of the state of the lobby. It was still packed with adventurers, although most were sitting at the tables provided. Several appeared to be nursing headaches, while only a few were browsing the job boards on the other side of the room. He walked past the front desk and then rounded on the employee nearest him.
“How can I help you, sir?” Droned a sleepy looking man.
“I’m here to inquire after membership. My name is Cain, and I’ve got a letter here from Simon K. Wells with R&E offering to waive the examination.”
“Oh,” he replied, a little light returning to his eyes, “you’re that Cain. No surname, right?”
“Unless you need one for legal reasons,” Cain smiled back at him.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“Cool, okay. Membership… I’ve got the form for joining as an adventurer in one of these drawers, hold on a moment.”
A lump of dread formed in Cain’s throat as Office Worker A started checking drawers. There was more paperwork after all.
It was a pleasant surprise when he pulled out only a single sheet of paper and a pen. “Okay, we don’t require a family name in the signature, but if you already have one you use for legal documents go ahead and put it down there. After that, just prick your thumb and stamp some blood on the runes at the bottom. Once that’s done, you’ll have official membership and be allowed to take contracts under our name.”
> ‘Adventurers licensed by the Adventurer’s Guild will be expected to:
>
> Report any contracts they take to a Guild attendant to be properly filed.
>
> Report the success, failure, or abandonment of any contract they have taken to a Guild attendant to be properly filed.
>
> Abide by any instructions or conditions specified by the contractor unless doing so would endanger the Adventurer or force them to expend as much or more wealth than they would gain by completion of the contract.
>
> Only complete contracts which they have already taken, to prevent other Adventurers from taking a contract they cannot complete.
>
> Exceptions will be allowed for standing or open contracts, which do not need to be reported except in the event of success. Adventurers may be penalized for breach of conduct by means of revocation of membership, at the Adventurer Guild’s discretion.
>
> I, Cain Égalis, understand and agree to these terms.
“That was a lot shorter than I expected,” Cain admitted.
“Yeah, we get that a lot,” grinned the employee. “The Guild is one of the easiest ways out of poverty for a lot of folks, so we get lots of people who haven’t learned how to navigate the usual drivel they put on these contracts. Some don’t even read.”
“I suppose that makes sense.”
“Alright, just one more moment.” The man reached down to another drawer in the desk and began rummaging through it. After a few moments, he pulled out a small silver instrument. It was a thin needle half the length of his finger fixed to what looked like a miniature screwdriver handle. Cain assumed it was to prick himself with — a suspicion that was confirmed when the man held it out towards him. He suppressed a shudder and gently pushed his left thumb against the point until he felt the skin break.
“Is that it, then?” Asked Cain, stamping his thumb into the small, inky runes at the bottom of the page.
“Sure is,” the man replied. “Just wait a minute for me to get a blank license for you, and then you can start taking jobs.”
Wow, that was… a lot more painless than expected. Cain stood blankly in front of the desk for maybe a minute or so waiting for the employee to come back with the blank license, which he assumed would be like the membership card from his bank account. He took a moment to notice how much metal he’d seen in the Guild building compared to other places in town. And a lot of it’s silver… seems like Magira wasn’t kidding when she called them influential.
“Alright, sorry for the wait. No need for blood on this one, just press a finger to the rune structure and wait a second. The Guild will keep your contract, and you’ll keep that license for us to identify you by.”
The man had given Cain what looked like silver at first, but felt more like aluminum in his hand. The small metal rectangle was shaped like those little paper charms he had seen in Japanese horror movies and games. Or maybe it was a Chinese thing — some parts of Asian culture tended to blend together from his Western point of view. He held his right thumb firmly against the rune structure at the bottom for a second, and pulled away after he felt it draw in his mana.
“Thanks. I’m guessing the part about reporting contracts is done at those kiosks over there, right? Do I just show them this whenever I take one?”
“That is indeed how it works,” the employee replied. “They’ll need to use another device to confirm it. It’ll check your mana against the contracts we have stored, letting it verify your identity when it finds a match.”
“Cool. Thanks for the help.”
“Just doing my job,” he said, slumping back into his chair.
Cain turned and started walking towards the cork wall-mounted boards filled with pinned leaflets and papers. Of the three other people browsing jobs, he recognized one of them to be the archer from the party that saved him — Ferdinand, if he remembered correctly. He decided not to strike up a conversation unless Ferdinand initiated, given that even he seemed to be struggling with a hangover.
‘Hey, Magira. Just letting you I finished registering with the Adventurer’s Guild. I’m looking over jobs now to see what’s available.’
‘Oh, alright! Let me know if you need me to throw on some of the new armor you bought and come help. I wouldn’t mind going out and exploring some — my stay in Fellgrave has mostly been limited to a cage until now.’
Cain mentally facepalmed — of course she’d want to go outside! In fact, it sounded like she’d grown up in a forest region with her family. Wild animals and even monsters were probably familiar scenery to her, and he’d been keeping her inside.
‘If you want to come along, you’re welcome to — you’d probably be a big help. I’ll let you know if I find a contract I’m interested in taking.’
‘Got it! This cloak is really nice, by the way.’
‘Agreed.’
Cain went back to browsing contracts, trying to refocus on the words in front of him. This one wants a pound of a specific herb… he wouldn’t be able to identify the right one, so no. This one needs ‘Grassy Warbler’ eggs… again, Cain wouldn’t be able to identify the bird or its eggs. There was one to catch a ‘Red Menace’ that was killing somebody’s sheep… he didn’t want to get involved in politics. What he was looking for were hunting jobs. Just the standard RPG stuff: go to this location and kill twenty of this thing. This board didn’t seem to have anything like that on it though. Given the nature of the requests, maybe it was a board for chores. A local alchemist outsourcing the gathering of ingredients, maybe a chef of some kind who needed a specific type of eggs — or maybe the alchemist again — and a rancher who had something harassing his livestock. It was essentially a board for what would be called starter quests in most games. Not-quite-everyday problems that are easier for the townspeople to hire someone else to do than take care of it themselves.
Cain looked at the board further to his left, where Ferdinand was browsing. He reluctantly walked over and began to do the same. He saw a request to hunt a humanoid fleshy undead that was hiding in the sewers, which he would not be taking. There was one to kill an ogre spotted in the highlands, which was tempting — but probably too much for a first job. There were some bigger posters on this board with “STANDING CONTRACT” emblazoned across the top. It looked like —
“Hey, aren’t you the pyromaniac?”
“Yes…” answered Cain.
“I almost didn’t recognize you with the clothes. Did you join the Guild already?”
“I did.”
“For someone who claims to be terribly indecisive,” Ferdinand said, “you sure do act fast.”
“Everybody has a secret to keep.”
“Feh,” he scoffed, “I guess so. You missed the drinking party last night, but I’m sure Rob would still buy you a round if you fancied sitting down for a chat. The rest of the party is sat over there.” Ferdinand pointed to one of the tables, where Mina, Irota, and Roberts were all sat munching on dry-looking bread.
“Noted,” replied Cain. “Say, Ferdinand, do you know much about fleshy undead?”
Ferdinand glared at him. “My name is Fernald, not Ferdinand.”
“And mine,” he grinned, “is Cain. Not pyromaniac.”
Fernald blinked as that sank in. “Touché.”
“Thanks. Now, can you tell me anything about fleshy undead? I don’t fancy getting caught with my pants down again.”
“I imagine not. Fleshy and entropic undead are the two most common types though, I’m surprised you don’t already know about them. Basically, the entropic ones look like starved skin bags. You can recognize them consistently by the black eyes and the ability to drain your mana with a touch. Fleshy undead are a lot more lively, so to speak. They have a tendency to perpetually rot, and eat the flesh of other corpses to sustain themselves. When there aren’t any corpses, they make some. That’s really all there is to them.”
“I see. Thanks for the information. Now, did you need something from me when you struck up conversation?”
He must have come off as slightly too dismissive, because Fernald’s expression soured a bit. “Nothing particular. I just recognized you and figured I’d check in. I don’t know what kind of shit you dealt with where you’re from, but an entropic forest isn’t exactly a walk in the park.”
Cain stiffened instantly at the emphasis on “where you’re from.” What did Fernald know about him, and how? “I recover quickly. I’m going to look for a contract I’m interested in. I’ll probably go and sit down for that chat afterwards. Maybe later you and I can talk about our hometowns.”
“Later, then.” Fernald walked off without another word.
_STANDING CONTRACT_
_CONTRACTOR : House Feldume_
_REWARD : Thirty Gold Coins_
_TASK : Bring Earth Reincarnates Alive To Baron Feldume_
Approved by the Adventurer’s Guild (Fellgrave Regional Branch)
‘Magira. We may have a problem.’