I wake up as I hear Shiona yawning next to me, we say good morning to each other and start petting our pet chimera as she walks from her spot on the bed towards us when she realizes we’re awake.
She has grown to the same size as the adult lesser chimeras already, or the same size as a normal platypus in other words, we have decided on a name as well, “Litll Guy”, before we had a name for her we just called out to her by saying “Little guy” and it ended up sticking around.
As for the seed the dryad had given us it had sprouted into a bud, however it hasn’t bloomed yet.
“Morning…” Greets a yawning Cathy once we exit our room.
“Good morning Cathy.” “Hope the morning shift wasn’t too hard on you.” We both answer back as we walk downstairs to start working.
It has been a good few weeks since the necromancer incident, once the others had caught up with us they first laughed when we explained how we caught the necromancer and after that we all took him into custody in the city after relieving him of his staff.
At first it had been decided that he was going to be executed, however he was able to bargain with the court and it was changed:
“Hee hee, you there, cat, you saw the staff I was using right? The staff is of my own creation, heh, I had been studying the best way to create wand for years on that island, completely undisturbed while using a relic to fuel my magic, heh heh, I wouldn't be surprised if that staff is decades, no, at least a century ahead of the primitive wands you use!” Had the necromancer said while staring at the judge and grinning maniacally.
The relic he was talking about was never found…
Or at least not by anyone else that is, the book's page is back where it belongs without anyone other than our little group being any the wiser.
As for what this page did? Turns out it was very similar to the inventory page, however it stored energy instead of objects.
Basically it was a very potent energy battery that the necromancer had been leeching off of to fuel himself.
It was then decided that in exchange for revealing how to make such staffs his sentence would be changed to one hundred years in an underground dungeon and depending on how much these new staffs helped keep people alive his time in the dungeon would be shaved off, maybe even letting him go free before he died of old age, though many doubted it as he seemed to already be on in years.
Now some weeks later me and Shiona had been allowed to get a room inside the guild, me due to fulfilling the “Guild’s little helper” title and Shiona due to my persistence, though her assistance in the necromancer incident also helped a lot.
Speaking of her assistance, while we’ve been out doing some quests these past few days she’s been trying to do what she did during the incident, however no matter what she does she never ends up succeeding for whatever reason, so as strong as she became back then it doesn’t seem to be a skill which can be relied upon.
Now what had happened in these past few weeks?
Well to begin with it seems that while we were out fighting the necromancer Rico and Anna who had been staying back home to take care of the guild and the inn had grown respectful of each other, once they had finished deciding who would do what while we were gone they had started talking business almost immediately and after an hour or two they had decided to try and merge the inn with the guild in the middle of the city to be more convenient for both parties and their customers.
They had actually both agreed to the merging within just ten minutes, the rest of the time had been spent trying to think of how to convince Hugh of this, but in the end they succeeded and now the guild had been rebuilt to be more than twice as large in order to accommodate for an inn and restaurant in one half while the guild worked the same as ever in the other half, also there was now a new staff only living room where we ate food which Anna and Hugh had been cooking, as scary as this sounds I can assure you that Hugh is a surprisingly good cook.
This also caused the number of employees the grow as the quartet started helping out in the booth when the guild staff was busy and vice versa, and since Joanne had started teaching Hugh how to cook and Cathy and Red were teaching each other how to do paperwork and how to wield small weapons everyone left had decided to do the same by grouping together and teaching each other the ropes of their work, Rico and Anna grouped up and so did Anne and Grizz, leaving only Rupe alone as they taught each other how to validate the different kinds of quests.
As for how things had changed for Shiona and I? Well the necromancer incident ended up giving the both of us both a guild accomplishment as well an actual title when I looked in the book and when Shiona used the status orb, stating how we had defeated a long lost profession who would have otherwise caused great damage.
Our guild ranks had risen too, both of our subjugation ranks had become Copper A rank, it would have been more but it turns out none of your ranks can go to the next metal not all of them can, however since it was such a large accomplishment Hugh said that once we did become silver adventurers our subjugation rank would rise again immediately, which we did just a few days afterwards, causing us both to now be silver A rank in subjugation, silver F in gathering and silver D rank in delivery. At first we asked whether the silver A rank meant that it was going to rise even further if we got to gold but turns out this was where it actually stopped.
We walked into the living room and sat down at the table while greeting everyone else, after the remodelling the stair which led down from the guild staff member rooms now led to the new living room rather than the main guild hall, we talked for a bit before we finished eating and everyone went their separate ways in pairs of two.
Except Rupe.
The pickits had left five days ago, they had finished making sure that this place had forgotten about their history and weren’t going to use them as manual labour slaves but they still had to make sure about the rest of the neighbouring countries before they could be certain it was safe for everyone.
The elves had to leave for their home country quickly together with the necromancer to find out how he could have gotten so adept in a profession which was thought to be extinct, turns out it was actually the elves which had put in the most effort into destroying all traces of necromancy so to them this was personal, when they left they also asked me to wait with coming to visit their village since it was going to be very hectic for a few weeks from now on.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Rico and Anna went towards the booths while the others went other ways, Shiona and I decided to take up some delivery or subjugation quests in order to raise our ranks, we had been rewarded for the necromancer incident enough so that we wouldn’t have to worry about money for a very long time, so instead we focused solely on rank rather than reward, however silver ranked quests weren’t very common here.
“Here’s one!”
“Finally!”
But it seems we got lucky this time as we found a quest where we needed to deliver some monster eggs from the monster shop I had been to previously to another city.
Shiona takes out the map which she still had in her back and starts looking around for a castle town called “Vartan”.
“You’ve gotten a lot better at holding things with your fingers Shiona.”
“Thanks. Vartan doesn’t actually seem to be more than a few days away by wagon, so if we leave so we should get there by evening since we take the sky route.”
“That sounds good, I don’t think there’s anything else we need to do today so I think we can just leave at any time.”
We walk back to Rico to get the quest note stamped and officially recognised as ongoing and tell him we will probably be gone for a few days to try and raise our ranks.
“Very well, I’ll tell the others and the elves if they come around while you’re gone, have a safe trip.”
“Thanks.”
We go by the monster shop and get the eggs which we will be transporting, while we’re there we also get some more food for Litly.
After that we walk through the city gates and take off towards the city of Vartan, Shiona taking care of flying while I look at the map to make sure we don’t make any mistakes.
Litly is poking her head out of Shiona’s backpack with an open beak, reminding me of a dog.
* * *
Maybe five hours later we’re still flying and I’m looking around to verify the landscape I spot something shimmering in an opening in a forest.
“Shiona, I think I see something over there, could we take a closer look?”
“Sure, hang on.”
She then takes a sharp turn towards the right and we get closer to the thing I had seen.
*fwuit*
When suddenly an arrow flies towards us, Shiona barely dodging it while I phase myself and drop down to the ground.
“Kid, you’ve better eyes than us, did she hit it?” Asks a burly male voice.
“I can’t see well with the sun but I think I saw something drop!” Responded a much younger voice.
Shiona stays up in the sky since everyone's attention had been drawn towards me when I fell and the voice started to get closer to me.
It’s obvious they had been trying to hit us however I still feel like it would be better do watch what they’ll do before going on the offensive, thus I phase myself below ground and through look at what they’re going to do from below.
“There’s nethin´ here! Ye be blind kid!” Shouts another new voice.
Right where I’d landed on the ground I saw a group of two men and one woman, the two first voices I’d heard belonging to the men, the first burly voice coming from a muscular bearded one while the other came from someone who looked to be a bit younger than a teenager, the third voice came from the woman, she looked like an elf and had a very weird looking bow made of metal as well as a pair of goggles on her, though they looked more like a pair of binoculars.
While they were arguing with each other (Though it was mostly the elf against the burly man) I move below the man and reach my arms up onto his shoes, and before they realize I'm there I pull him down under the ground to his knees and let go, causing him to fly up to the tree tops where a Litly jumps out of a Shiona’s bag and starts scratching at him to keep him occupied.
“NOW!” I shout as a briefly come above the surface, when I do Shiona dives at them while dodging another arrow and grabs the boy as she flies back into the sky, then while the elf is busy focusing on aiming at Shiona I grab her ankles and put her to sleep.
*THUD*
Just as I do it seems that the burly man wasn’t able to keep his balance while trying to grab at Litly and fell down from the tree head first and fainted.
I get up and tie the both of them as well as the boy who had fainted from the sudden flight together with a rope I had bought from Rupe (always good to have) and we take them with us while we start walking, waiting for them to wake up and answer a few question.
Obviously we also removed any weapons they had, and let me tell you, the elf was hiding a lot of knives which Shiona had to take out while I took care of the other’s.
“This is taking too long, can’t I just splash them with some water?”
“Go ahead.”
She then eats a blue fruit from her belt and drenches the three people with a *splash*.
“Now then, mind explaining why you guys were trying to shoot us out of the sky? Can’t promise we won’t do something nasty depending on the answer.” I say towards them, mostly trying to scare the boy and make him talk.
“Sorry!” Shouts the burly man suddenly, surprising us since we thought it was going to be the boy for certain.
“...Uhm…”
“We thought you were a winged snake!” Continues the man.
“How!?” Shouts Shiona suddenly, interrupting any further excuses as she seems to have taken personal offense.
This time it’s the elf that explain.
“Ye were flyin´ in the sun an´ carryin´ somethin´, nea our fault ye was so intent on lookin´ like a snake wi´ wings!” She says while glaring at us, only causing Shiona’s anger to rise further.
“Uhm uhm, when you w-were holding him w-with both your… talons? Y-your legs and what you were carrying looked l-like a snake t-tail…” Says the boy, somehow squeezing out what he wanted to say despite his apparent fear, however his attempt at getting himself and his party out of trouble is soon foiled-
“Do yer worst!”
-by the elf as she defiantly insists on getting on Shiona’s bad side.
*sigh*
I walk up to the elf and put her back to sleep, fear and anger now appearing in both the others’ faces.
“Don’t worry, she’s just asleep, I just wanted to be able to talk without her causing any more problems.” Both of them appear relieved when I say this.
“Sure, but if you want compensation we don’t have much…”
“Nothing of the sort, the only ones who lost anything now was the elf who lost a few arrows, no harm done.” I try to assure them, however the scowling Shiona behind me doesn’t seem to help put their minds at ease.
“T-then what do you want?” Asks the boy timidly.
“Well the two of us are adventurers in fact, and we were going to stay in Vartan for a while for some better quests, we were wondering if you who look to be fellow adventurers could give us a few pointers of the area around here.”
We then talk for a while and we take off the ropes which we’d bound them all in and start walking to Vartan which was now a walking distance away from here, the burly man carrying the elf on his back while I keep her asleep.
*splash*
“Ye foggin´-”
*sigh*
“-Wank...ahs...” *snore*
“How about us two go first and you can wake her up when we get out of sight?”
Everyone seemed to think this was a good idea so Shiona and I set off towards the gates before them an entered the city with a large castle in the middle, Vartan.
We would be taking our time exploring the city however in order to avoid any more trouble with the elf we decide to simply hurry to the guild, maybe ask around for an inn while we’re there and if things go well maybe even take a quest or two before retiring for the night, however-
“Where’s the guild?” Asks Shiona.
“I.. Don’t know…”
Turns out not every city had their guild placed as prominently as Eastern lake city, leading us to wander around for quite a while before eventually deciding to simply ask some civilians for directions, due to this by the time we arrived at the guild it was much too late to do anything other than tell them we were there in case they needed help (With me now officially working at the guild this was something I needed to do) before we went to an inn that the people working here had recommended us, once we got there we paid for seven days and ate our own food once we got to the room.