by Ivan Kal
The others looked around thoughtfully.
“There had been reports about a few adventurers going missing in the mountains,” Vestella said.
Morgan remembered as well when she mentioned it. “Right, didn’t they find some non-ascended dead below the cliffs?”
“They did, but the Adventurers Guild’s stance on that was that they fell to their deaths,” Clara added.
“Doesn’t matter now,” Lucius added. “What does matter is that if we are right, then there is a nest filled with eggs down there.”
Morgan saw him point at the cave and immediately shuddered. “Please don’t tell me that we are going back down there?”
Lucius gave him a shrug and then asked Ves and Vall to help him gather the corpses so that he could put them in his bag of holding. They would cut off the fangs as proof for the bounty, and the rest of the bodies they would harvest for materials to sell. Lucius possessed a ring of holding that was probably their team’s most valuable possession: a holding space that didn’t have a limit on the number of items, but a high-quality one that had about two cubic meters worth of space for them to keep stuff in. It was a lifesaving item for the adventurers like them.
Morgan remained where he was, grimacing as he thought about going back down the dark, wet, and web filled tunnels.
Clara slapped his shoulder and grinned. “Cheer up, buddy. Think of all the gold we will earn from those eggs, or better yet you can use them for your crazy experiments!”
Morgan looked at her and immediately brightened. That does make it better, he thought to himself. He hadn’t tried using the swarm spider eggs in any of his alchemy experiments. Properly cheered up, he grabbed his tool kit from his bag of holding and settled next to the queen’s body, getting to work. There were quite a lot of materials worth taking from such a monster. He started cutting into the spider, his Skinning and Monster Lore skills allowing him to quickly get through the body and take the useful and valuable parts. By now he had gotten very good at it, and it took him barely a few minutes to reduce the monster’s body to only its unusable parts. Finally he stood up, and crossed over to the others who were standing next to a massive pile of swarm spider bodies. They were all piled on top of each other and pushed as close together as possible. Lucius waved a hand over them, and the bodies disappeared into his ring. Morgan knew that the amount of corpses would fill his holding space to the brim. There was another pile nearby with fangs of the swarm spiders that they had cut off to use as proof back at the Adventurers Guild, and Ves waved her own hand over it and it disappeared into her ring. Each of them had a ring of holding, too—only theirs had far less space, about half a cubic meter’s worth.
Ves stood up and pulled back her chin-length red hair behind her pointed ear as she turned to look at Morgan. “You all done?”
“Yes, let’s go down and get this over with. I need a bath,” Morgan said as he shook the slimy spider blood from his hands—harvesting from monster bodies was not a clean job. They headed to the cave entrance and then down into the dark.
CHAPTER TWO
A few hours and a lot of egg smashing later, they reached their home base: the town of Irus. Calling it a town was a bit misleading, however. The towns that were in Morgan’s guild—Skyreach—territory were backwater villages compared to this one. Morgan would better call Irus a full-blown city, but according to the other guilds it was considered a small outpost town. Which only put in perspective the entire valley that Morgan’s guild ruled over. Ever since Morgan had arrived on this world, he had been told that the small valley that had become his home was a backwater not even worth taking over by the guilds that lived beyond it, and he had never truly understood that. Not until he had ventured past the mountains and into the rest of the continent proper. It had been almost two and a half years since his guild survived the goblin horde, and since his guild had come to rule over the entire valley. Since then they had trained more ascended, expanded their Guild Hold and advanced.
Then he and the others had decided that it was time for them to leave the valley and spread beyond it. Morgan and his team—Lucius, Vallsorim, Vestella and Clara—left the valley they had by then out leveled in order to find new challenges, to ascend further and earn wealth to grow their guild. But the reality of what Morgan found beyond the valley was simply eye-opening. There were very few non-ascended out here, and those who did live here were basically treated as second-rate citizens. And then there were the cities, or rather towns, themselves. Ever since Morgan arrived here he had been surrounded by what he in his mind called a fantasy setting, a medieval setting: swords and magic with technology on the same level. But that was not exactly the case. He didn’t understand what having people who were ascended truly meant. Everything still had a primitive feel, but it wasn’t.
The magic, or rather power, of the ascended was advanced, and people had created wondrous things. Irus had a sewer system, every building had plumbing, and the streets were paved with smooth stone by those ascended who could manipulate it. The buildings themselves were crafted as beautiful pieces of art, looking as if they were carved out of a single piece of stone. Morgan knew that they weren’t, but there were ascended architects and builders, and even the common workers were ascended. Morgan had believed that his valley could grow to become on par with the other guilds of this world—he had seen the lush valley filled with forests, minerals to be mined, with ground suitable for growing food, and thought that it was enough.
But there was a reason why no other guild bothered with the valley. The resources that were so abundant here were of the lowest quality, things that other guilds didn’t even use. There existed forests made out of red-barked trees which were tougher than iron, metals that eclipsed what the ore his people mined could do. Morgan realized that in this world’s terms, the valley was basically a starting zone, low in level and worthless for the ascended after they reached a certain point.
It had hit Morgan hard when he realized that, but he hadn’t allowed himself to lie down in defeat. The resources of his valley were enough for a slow growth, but they needed what the other guilds had, and without any territory beyond the valley they had been forced to get such resources through trade—which meant that they needed coin. And so they decided to become a true adventuring team, going on missions and harvesting materials to help them grow. They were in the process of training up other ascended teams to start adventuring on their own.
As they reached the gates of Irus, Morgan studied the smooth round walls. They were dark gray in color, made out of something called mist stone, which was farmed from deep beneath the great lakes surrounding the town. It was one of their main exports, or rather of the guild that owned the city—Omen. It was one of three guilds that controlled the territory just outside the pass of the valley, which was now the property of the Skyreach Guild, a third-tier guild which was well known and respected. So their territory had been the obvious choice for first contact with other guilds, especially since one of the three guilds was Glitter Force, the home of the orc who had left Morgan and his friends to die in the dungeon all that time ago. Morgan had vowed to get revenge, but he was smart enough to know that he wasn’t in a position to do anything about that, not yet.
Through Skyreach’s hearthstone they had been able to register themselves as adventurers, their names instantly appearing in the Adventurers Guild—that coupled with the badges their hearthstone provided allowed them to move through other guilds’ territories freely. Based on their past accomplishments, they had been given iron badges. Hexagonal in shape, they were made out of the material of the rank with the crest of their guild etched onto it, which in their case was the head of a manticore. After years of adventuring they had advanced to the next rank: bronze. Morgan’s own badge was hanging on his belt, easy to be seen by anyone. The guards at the gates of Irus already knew them on sight, but their badges alone would allow them entry.
The town was bustling with activity, with ascended walking around living their live
s. Most of them were part of the Omen Guild, working for it in various roles, from construction to mining and even sanitation. Most of the people here were over level fifteen, relying on their guild in order to survive. Ascended needed ascension crystals in order to survive, and depending on one’s level one needed stronger crystals in order to get more time to live. As long as they consumed crystals, ascended were virtually immortal. In practice, however, it was not so simple. One couldn’t use the same crystals forever; they lost effectiveness over time, meaning that ascended were forced to kill monsters in order to continue living, even if the guilds had somewhat changed that. The guilds had many adventuring teams that hunted and supported the rest of the guild, while the guild supported their adventuring. But that meant that ascended that weren’t going out and adventuring had to prove their worth in whichever field they worked in that would make it worth to the guild to spend crystals on them.
Morgan’s guild didn’t have to worry a lot about that, at least not yet. They didn’t have that many ascended, and what they could loot in their valley coupled with what their adventuring team earned was enough to sustain them for now. But he and Lucius had plans for the future.
Inside the walls, Irus looked strange to Morgan. The streets were orderly, set in a grid pattern; the buildings were short, two or three stories at the most, with flat roofs, all with smooth walls decorated with what he could only describe as graffiti. It made the town look lively and colorful, contrasting the monotone walls that surrounded it. The five of them headed straight to the Adventurers Hall near the center plaza of the city. Here, they could see more adventurers of all shapes and sizes. Morgan saw humans, elves, dwarfs—although they hated being called that and preferred instead dwarvar—as well as people who looked like two-legged werewolves, which Morgan now knew were called Úlfriir. The Omen Guild was led by mostly Úlfriir, but this area of their territory was mostly occupied by humans.
They entered the Adventurers Hall and headed straight to one of five front desks, taking the first one that was free. Lucius stopped in front of an old-looking human, which was a rarity in these parts as people stopped aging after they ascended, and put his badge on the counter.
“We are here to turn in bounties and a contract,” Lucius told the receptionist.
The old man glanced at the badge, his eyes flickering for a moment as he probably used his Inspect ability to verify the badge’s authenticity. Then he nodded and turned to look at Lucius. “Team name?”
“Sky Force,” Lucius said. Morgan was actually very proud that he had managed to convince the other to go for the name, especially since it continued with the theme of their guild.
The old man turned to look at a round piece of glass, pressing his hand on it. The orb glowed to life and something resembling a screen appeared above it. The first time Morgan had seen something like that he had immediately thought about magical computers—but alas they were far simpler, although still complicated and useful. The recording orbs were a way of storing and viewing information, which he figured was pretty much the same as a primitive computer, but sadly they didn’t have games. Morgan’s disappointment had been immeasurable and his day ruined when he found out.
The receptionist read through the data pertaining to their team then turned his eyes back on them. “You took the contract for clearing the swarm spider nest?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.
It was an understandable reaction. The swarm spiders were classified as a silver-class threat, meaning that it was recommended for a team of at least silver rank to take on, and they were a bronze-ranked team. There were no real requirements, and ascended could do whatever they wanted—an iron team could’ve attempted to take on the contract, but they would’ve probably died. Morgan’s team had high enough levels, but the amount of swarm spiders could overwhelm nearly any team. Thanks to their preparations and planning, they had been able to neutralize their numbers quickly and with little risk. Morgan was quite proud of their achievement.
“Yes, and we have proof,” Lucius said and placed his hand over the counter. A pair of spider fangs appeared on it a moment later. “There is more from where that came from.”
The old man nodded, impressed, then grabbing the recording orb and standing up. “We shall need a room, then?”
Lucius nodded and the five of them were escorted into a back room where the bulkier bounties were being processed. Once inside, Lucius dumped out all of the fangs they had gathered on an enchanted plate that then transported it to the Adventurers Guild’s storage.
The man whistled when a recording orb next to the plate showed the number of fangs that they had brought.
“One hundred and six pairs. Impressive,” the man said.
Lucius smiled. “We have a few more things,” he said, before gesturing to Ves, who stepped up to the plate and unloaded her own ring. Smaller than Lucius’s but bigger than Morgan’s, it had afforded enough space to hold the spider eggs they had smashed in the cave. The eggs ranged from the size of a golf ball to a football, but there were few of those. The spider eggs were released in clusters, and then they grew slowly alongside with the spider inside, they weren’t really eggs, more like membranes that were somewhat tough.
The man’s eyes widened when he saw them. “Eggs? At this season?”
“Yes,” Morgan answered. “We assume that it was an abnormal behavior, though we don’t know why. But we have these as well.” Morgan pulled out the two fangs from the swarm queen and gave them to the man.
The receptionist took them from his hands and looked them over. “These look like they came from a fully developed queen… I will need to make a report about this. The other known nests will need to be checked.”
Morgan nodded his head at the man’s words. The swarm spiders weren’t really dangerous monsters, individually at least—but when their nests were allowed to grow unchecked, they could threaten entire towns. It was why the Adventurers Guild had an open bounty on swarm spider fangs and contracts for clearing out their nests.
Finally the man turned to the orb in his hands and read something off, then turned to Lucius. “You will get fifty silver pieces and twenty silver pieces, per fang set and egg respectively, and the contract for clearing out a nest is one hundred gold coins.”
Lucius nodded as the man produced a pouch from one of his rings and extended it to Lucius. Their gain for this mission should be one hundred and seventy five gold coins. It wasn’t a fortune, not out here, but it was a sizable amount. Lucius stored the pouch inside his ring without counting. There was no need, as the Adventurers Guild always dealt fairly—and if they didn’t, the Guiding Force would intervene.
The receptionist then smiled as he entered their contribution in the orb. “With this mission complete, your team is now qualified for silver rank.”
Morgan turned to the others and grinned, and they did the same. This had been their goal all along: completing a silver-rank mission had made them qualified for that rank.
“I can have our guild stone make you new badges immediately,” the man said.
Lucius shook his head. “Thank you, but no. We will go back to our guild and have them made by our hearthstone.”
The man nodded knowingly. The Adventurers Guild could issue new badges, but most adventurers chose to get new ones from their own guild, principally for sentimental reasons. It was no different for them—they hadn’t been back home in months, and this was a good reason to return.
The man congratulated them and they left.
“I can’t believe we did it,” Ves said as she locked her elbow with Morgan’s.
“I told you that we would, didn’t I?” Morgan asked cheerfully.
Before Ves could answer, Clara jumped in. “Of course you told us, but we have learned to ignore most of the nonsense you say.”
Morgan made a mock gasp, pretending to be insulted, but he was in far too good of a mood to be brought down. “Without me you would all probably be dead already.”
Morgan meant it as a l
ight comment, but the others immediately sobered. For a moment he thought that he’d said something wrong. Oh crap, I really need to learn to keep my mouth shut and nod. He had lived in this world for a long time, enough that he had learned much about the culture here.
But then Vall spoke. “You are right. If we had never met you, we would all probably have died by now. I don’t remember if I ever thanked you for everything that you have done for us, Morgan, but I know that we don’t say it enough…so, thank you.”
The others all nodded and Ves squeezed his hand. Morgan was left without words for once. He loved these people—they were his family—and seeing that look in their eyes made him almost want to cry. In fact he was pretty sure that he was about to.
Then Vall frowned as he looked at his face. “Are you crying?”
“What? No, shut up, you’re crying,” Morgan said as he put a hand on his face and wiped away the single tear. Vall shook his head, and Clara thankfully changed the subject, and they continued walking toward their inn. Ves reached out to his chin and turned his head to look at her, then leaned in and gave him a quick kiss.
“It’s okay, Morgan. I’m pretty sure that you would’ve died, too, had you not met us,” she told him with a loving twinkle in her eyes. Morgan smiled at her. She was his rock in this world that he now called home. His mate, partner, or amri as they called such things here, she was everything that he had never known he needed.
They made their way to their inn, Adventure’s Call, one that catered specifically to adventurers. They got inside and entered the large common room filled with tables and people drinking and eating. They started making their way to the back of the room and the doors that lead to the suites.
Before they got even halfway through the room, though, someone yelled out at them.
“Sky Force! Morgan!” a tall and loud human with a truly impressive beard, and hair that was pulled back into a topknot, screamed, successfully grabbing their attention.
