Chương 36: Ardark Adventurers Guild

When Maelle got back to the inn, Amberlin had already returned. The adventurer was up in their shared room playing with Boots and talking to him like he was a real person. Maelle had very little experience with cats. In the Draegorian Empire, they were only kept to keep the pigeons out, and the palace never had any problems with pigeons to begin with.

"Can he understand our language?"

"I don't think so," Amberlin replied.

"But you're talking to him." Amberlin picked Boots up and held him out to her.

"Do you want to hold him?" Seeing Amberlin's sly grin, she sensed a trap.

"... Is it safe?" Amberlin responded by thrusting Boots closer to her. The cat looked at her expectantly. Tentatively she took hold of him, after which he confidently climbed up on her arms and licked at her face.

"Aww, aren't you a cutie?" she cooed.

"Barely even five seconds and you've already started talking to him," Amberlin declared triumphantly. She realized what she'd just done, but also decided that she didn't care. Instead she switched to making baby noises while Boots tapped her on the cheeks with his beanie paws.

"You guys picked a nice place," Amberlin said while watching them play.

"The entire street smells like fresh bread." She remembered that Amberlin hadn't been there when they'd chosen this inn.

"How'd you know to find us here?"

"I was checking out Baker's Row to see if they had any good cake shops. Then I saw Boots hanging out the window." Maelle put her face down next to Boots' and said to him, "Does that mean you like the smell of bread too? You do, don't you? Yes, you do. Yes, you do!"

"You can keep him company for me," Amberlin said.

"I'm heading out."

"Wait," she said quickly.

"I'm about to head out too. I thought I'd go register with the adventurers guild."

"Take him with you. He'll like to see more of the city." Amberlin was out the door before she could respond.

Guildmaster Gide was in his office meticulously going over all the paperwork like a good guildmaster should. As much as he didn't like paperwork, it sure beat fighting trolls. The guild attendant popped his head in.

"Sir? I've got to go pick my kid up from daycare. I've finished updating the quest board. All that's left for the rest of the day is to handle any walk-ins."

"Thanks for your hard work," Gide said.

"I'll take it from here." He remained in his office working through his files. If anyone needed assistance, there was a bell at the front counter they could ring to get his attention. Doing it this way allowed him to get more work done. The only problem was the occasional adventurer who couldn't read the note next to the bell. Which was why the attendant had left his door open—so he could see if anyone was waiting at the counter.

In the meantime he finished reading through an after-action report about the giant eels in the sewers. Because so many adventurers were stuck over at Ygg Latten Bay, the city had to hire some local fishermen to deal with the problem. He heard the front entrance open and looked up to see a boy walk up to the front counter. The boy looked at the bell, then the note, scratched his head, looked around, spotted Gide through his office door, and skipped on over.

"Guildmaster, sir?" the boy said.

"What can I do for you, son?" he asked gently. The boy held out a letter.

"Delivery from Lorelark."

"Lorelark?" He accepted the letter and gave the boy four coppers. The usual price from Lorelark was a copper for up to ten letters, but with all the bandit activity, the price had gone up. After the boy gladly accepted the coins and ran off to continue his rounds, Gide turned the letter over. It was from Guildmaster Gil, his counterpart in Lorelark. He broke the seal and began reading. The letter talked about the abduction of the Lorelark guild attendant, Amy.

While Gide had yet to meet the young lady, the picture he'd gleaned from Gil's letters over the past year was that of a hard worker. Even when Gil was complaining about how she was always on his case about the paperwork stacking up, there had been a clear undertone of respect for how seriously she took her job. Fortunately Amy had been safely rescued by a passing adventurer, described only as a young lady, who was on her way to Ardark and should be arriving at the same time as this letter.

That meant she was already here, Gide realized, before continuing to read. Gil asked him to extend the hero every possible courtesy. There was a warning about being extra cautious around her tuxedo cat, though no mention of why. And then advice not to speak of her or her accomplishments to anyone, as apparently she liked to operate undercover. The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

As if to emphasize this point, Gil requested, with some heavy underlining on the page, that Gide not allow the lady to know that he had written about her, and feared the consequences should she ever find out.

"Gil, you've become such a gossip in your old age," Gide muttered into his empty office.

"And forgetful too. You didn't even tell me the young lady's name." At that moment someone walked into the guild with a tuxedo cat on their shoulder. While they were wearing a hood, he could tell from their stature that it was a teenage girl. The girl walked up to the front counter, looked at the bell and the note, looked around, spotted Gide through his office door, and marched right on over.

"Don't they teach kids how to read these days?" Gide grumbled.

"I can read," the girl said.

"Then why didn't you ring the bell?"

"What's a bell?" Gide set Gil's letter aside. It felt like this conversation was going to require a lot of concentration.

"What can I do for you, young lady?"

"I'd like to register as an adventurer." He looked her over.

"You seem a bit young to be adventuring."

"Why does age matter when I'm at silver level?" she retorted. He was about to dismiss her wild claim when something turned inside his mind. What was this uneasiness that he felt? In his years of adventuring, he'd learned to pay attention to his gut. It was the key to staying alive when surrounded by things that wanted to kill you. But why was it speaking to him now? While he was trying to figure out the source of his unease, he made eye contact with the cat perched on the girl's shoulder.

He got the sense that it was deeply unimpressed with what it saw. Yet his heart began pounding in his chest. Why did the cat frighten him so? The warning in Gil's letter resurfaced in his mind. Be careful around the young lady's tuxedo cat. It couldn't be talking about this girl, could it? Now that he thought about it, there had been a brief mention in there about silver-rank. There was one easy way to find out, since the letter had said it would arrive here at the same time as the hero.

He tore his gaze away from the cat and kept his voice steady long enough to ask, "Did you just get into Ardark today?"

"I came in with the caravan from Lorelark," the girl said, regarding him with suspicion.

"How did you know?"

"Because you look new in town," he replied quickly. If this girl was the undercover hero in question, he had to be careful not to say anything to get Gil into trouble. This meant pretending he hadn't received any news from Lorelark. He definitely couldn't mention anything about Amy. Unfortunately his answer hadn't completely alleviated her suspicions.

"Someone told you about me, didn't they?"

"I'm afraid I can't say," he replied, trying not to dig his hole any deeper than it already was. She was far sharper than she looked. But that would make sense if she was operating under a disguise.

"Did they swear you to secrecy?" she asked. He nodded slowly.

"I suppose you could say that was requested of me." Sorry Gil! But there was still some plausible deniability for the both of them.

"What did they tell you about me?"

"Not much, I swear. They didn't even give me your name. Just asked me to help you out how I can." This seemed to satisfy her at last.

"So you'll make an exception and allow someone as young as me to register as an adventurer?"

"This is definitely one of those situations where an exception can be applied," Guildmaster Gide agreed, convinced that the girl's age was just a part of her cover. He felt an immense relief when the cat yawned and turned its attention to cleaning itself.

"And please don't think badly about... our mutual associate."

"I won't. But we can trust you not to speak about this to others, right?"

"No one will hear a peep from me," he assured her. While it was odd to make a new registration when her other profile was only at silver, he felt like he'd overstepped too much already to risk asking. It wasn't any of his business, and crystal-rankers often had indecipherable reasons. There wasn't any rule against multiple registrations. In fact this wasn't even the first time he'd helped a crystal-ranker create an alt profile.

In the other case he felt that the adventurer had trouble making friends and they'd believed that having a normal profile might help. It was a problem Gide had experienced himself as he rose through the ranks, though he never got high enough for it to become a real problem. He did however get the opportunity to have a few plats really open up to him about the struggles they faced, not being able to tell who liked them for them and who liked them out of hero worship.

If this young lady was as talented as Gil made her out to be, he felt kind of sorry for her, to have to experience that sort of isolation at such a tender age. That was of course assuming that she wasn't much older than her disguise made her out to be. They went through the registration process on the Maker's Shift system. Everything went smoothly and he handed her the shiny new guild badge and card with a smile.

"Welcome to the adventuring world, Maelle from Restford." Maelle pinned the badge to her cloak and then the card disappeared into her inventory.

"Now that you're all set up," Gide said, "might you be interested in taking on a quest?"

"Do you have an easy one for me?" she asked.

"Oh, yes, this one will be well within your capabilities. It won't take long either, since we already know where the monster is." By the estimation of the adventurers who encountered it, the monster was about gold level. Not a problem at all for a mysterious archmage in the crystal ranks.

"I should give you some background first," he began.

"There are a few popular forage spots west of the city. Monsters do occasionally spawn there, though nothing the local foragers can't handle on their own. This one is different though." He pulled out a map and spread it across his desk. Guiding along with his finger, he explained, "If you leave by the west gate and follow this road along, about three miles out, there are these hills and this grove here, which is the last sighted location of the monster."

She nodded along with his explanation and then pointed at a marking some distance east of the grove.

"What's this here?"

"That's the Dabaux estate. Tucker Dabaux owns the largest trading house in Ardark. I should mention, on your way to the grove, you should avoid the general area around the estate. It's all private property. Stick to the road until you get to the hills."

"What if the monster has moved on from the grove?" she asked.

"That's what we're afraid of. The monster was only sighted around noon today, and we'd like to get rid of it before it turns its attention to unwary travelers on the road."

"What can you tell me about the monster?"

"The eyewitness accounts are a bit inconsistent," he said.

"Some say it has six legs, others say it looks like a bear. Another says it has a scorpion's tail, but they all agree it doesn't have any pincers. As you see, the descriptions are all over the place." He would have liked to send another team to gather more intel on it, but adventurers were scarce at the moment thanks to the problems at Ygg Latten Bay, and the golds that were in the area were currently away on other quests. Luckily with the arrival of a powerful hero, none of that was going to be a problem anymore.

"And you want me to kill it?" she asked.

"Kill it and bring something back as proof. As for the reward..." He pulled out ten silver coins from his inventory and saw her eyes light up. Without taking her eyes off the coins, the archmage said, "I'll head straight there."