“Really?” He asked.
“Yes. Everything on the board is rank two or higher. Nothing we can accept. Mostly bounties or guarding caravans. Might as well head towards Gilleth Forest while we have day light left.” We left the guild hall and purchased jerky and bread for four days before exiting the city.
“You know where we are going?” George asked. He was looking more and more helpless as this went on. No wonder why most new adventurers died.
“Yeah. We can go over the maps at lunch when we take a break. It should take about two ten-days to reach the forest. There are enough towns along the route to stock up supplies.”
“A horse would be nice.” George said as he shifted his pack.
“When you find the gold piece for one let me know.” A horse wasn’t that expensive, but they weren’t cheap.
“You ever see one?” He asked. It took me a moment to realize he was asking about a gold piece and not a horse.
“A couple of times, but my parents always handled those transactions.”
We walked in silence for a bit then George spoke up again. “I may not know much, but how is it you are level four after just coming of age?” He asked.
“This stays between us, got it?” I asked.
“Definitely, now share.” He grinned.
“So when I was eight, I managed to get this sword and head down into the sewers.”
“Ewww.”
“Yeah, it was gross. Anyways, there are sewers under the sewers and there I fought and killed three kobolds.”
“What?! You have to be joking?”
“Nope. They were blind and weak. The first one impaled itself on my sword. The next two showed up. I cut the neck of one and the slammed my blade into the brain of the last one. That was enough to unlock my status panel.”
“By the Gods, you really are trouble. Any other adventures?”
“No, I was lucky no one found out. My mother would have skinned me alive if she had.”
“I bet. Any combat skills?”
“Nope, you?”
“I have Archery, which increases my accuracy a bit. No active abilities.”
“I can do some utility runes but that is it.” I wasn’t going to share my mana abilities. “Light, heat, chill, repel. Nothing offensive and setting them up takes time. What is your range on that?” I gestured at the bow.
“I can shoot up to hundred feet with accuracy and three hundred at the most.”
“How does that compare to other people?” I asked.
“Well someone who is a good shot can shoot around five hundred feet with accuracy and thousand if they really go for it.” I could run a hundred feet in about ten to fifteen seconds. So he could get two accurate shots off in a fight.
“Guess we both have room to improve.” I knew goblins often traveled in groups from what I had read. They preferred swarm tactics and had limited levels of self-preservation.
“Yeah.” He looked a bit more depressed but there was nothing I could say to make things better. Midday finally came and we stopped to refill our water canteens from a nearby creek and to have some dried bread and meat. I pulled out the map for the area and unrolled it for George.
“This is Azalon and these lines are roads. In three or four days we should reach Horth and then after that comes Millicent and finally Jopel at the edge of the forest.”
“Huh, that is definitely a ways to go.”
CHAPTER 2
“Finally, Jopel and a bed. My feet are killing me.” George said as I looked over the tiny town. It only had a wood wall and a wood tower at each entrance. Probably no more than a couple hundred people at most.
“Come on, let’s see if there is a guild hall.” We walked up to the entrance.
“Business?” The guard grunted. I pointed at the medallion we both wore.
“Adventurers, guild hall is at the town plaza.” We went by him and into the town. The stink and dirt roads were a far cry from Azalon with its sewer system. We walked through the town to the center. A guild hall was there, but it was only two stories and made of wood.
It was before midday so I only noted two people sitting about inside which wasn’t that surprising. The guild hall was a mix of restaurant, bar, and meeting place. We walked up to the bar, which also seemed to be the reception desk at places like this. “What do you want?” The old man tending the bar grunted.
“Room for the night and a meal.” He gave us another glance.
“Newbies huh. Well welcome to Jopel, the town of dreams.” At the last bit the other two patrons let out a shout. “Five coppers for a room and eight for a meal for both of you. If you want to take a shit or piss, outhouse is behind this place.” The room was fairly cheap as well as the food. I handed over the money.
“You get room three on the second floor.” He pulled out a key from behind the bar and put it on the counter. “Meal will be a while. Looking for anything here in Jopel?” He asked.
“Nope, but any news you have about the goblins would be appreciated.”
“Polite one, well good luck with that. Gilleth is teeming with the things, but not much money around these parts to bump up the bounties. A copper for every two ears you bring back. Three coppers for every two warg ears you bring back.”
“Why two?”
“Otherwise people cut two ears off of one monster and claim for both of them. Anyways, there is not much else around here. I am Boron.”
“Edward.”
“George.”
“Welcome, so where you come from?” He asked.
“Azalon?” George said it more as a question than as an answer.
“That is a distance. Well if you buy a beer for one of your seniors I am sure they can tell you a few stories to warm up your blood.” He said.
“I got stories for you kid.” One of the two people sitting down called out. He was a middle aged man and I saw a gold medallion with a three on it.
“Three ales then.” I said to Boron. I had only had watered down ale growing up. This made the transition to adulthood seem far more real than anything I had said to my parents.
“Hah, don’t go to fast. Three coppers.” I placed the money on the counter and he placed the ales down. George grabbed one and I grabbed the other two. We sat at the table and set our packs to the side.
“I am Yonson.” The man said.
“Edward.”
“George.” We all took a sip of ale. It was bitter and I made sure to drink slowly.
“Thanks for the ale. Now for newbies like you, the best thing is to watch out for grumpkins and snarks.” He said with a smile.
“I was thinking we needed to look out for ents and elves in the forest.” I replied. I already knew he was making up fake monsters. Reading that bestiary my father copied had been one of the more exciting books, especially the pictures. I knew it didn’t have everything but I wasn’t about to fall for a trick so easily.
“Not in Gilleth. Though elves sneak into camp and night and bite off your toes and steal your stuff.”
“So how do you deal with them?” I asked.
“Large parties are always good. Got to keep watch. Always be careful with the mages especially the low level ones. I am talking about in your own party.” He took another sip of ale. “They are all one and done. They blow their load and like a cheap woman you are left wanting for more. Half of them can’t keep a decent watch. They meditate and keep their eyes closed and don’t pay attention.” He had a much larger sip of ale this time.
“One time I was out, large party, sixteen of us. Ass hole of a mage and me were keeping watch on separate sides of camp. Well the idiot got stabbed to death by a gnoll and the camp over run. Ten dead, ten good people dead because of an idiot.” He drank the rest of his ale.
“Just be careful. We would try and put you with other rank ones but a pack of them just left a ten-day ago. You can wait, but who knows when they will come back if ever. Or you can wait for others to show up. You might tempt me if there were enough of you to help out on your
first expedition. Just would need more ale, a lot of ale.”
“We will think on it. I want to rest up a bit, see you later.” I said.
“I am going to stay for a bit.” George said.
“You can have the rest of mine. I should be down in a bit otherwise grab when the meal is ready.” George nodded and I headed up to the room while the two continued chatting about bows and shooting things.
The room had two wood beds and that was it. I pulled out my blanket and laid it on top and then laid down, using my pack as a pillow. Meditating, huh, so that was the secret to mages and getting more mana. It was just the start of being an adventurer and already it was paying off big time. I closed my eyes and tried to focus on my mana without using it. I tried willing it into me and filling me up. After a while I checked my skills and there it was.
This would greatly increase my ability to regenerate mana, this was huge. I wanted to bang my head against something for not discovering this sooner. Something so simple was the key to mana. No wonder why the priests stayed still all the time praying. “Meditate.”
The world dimmed and everything seemed to fade into the background as I lay there. I could move but there was a certain calm to remaining still. My eyes slowly began to shut and it was incredibly difficult to resist the downwards pull. I forced them open and the effect was broken. I figured it was a safe guess that the mana regeneration stopped at the same time.
That was annoying. I would be near defenseless while recovering my mana. It made sense though in regards to the story I had heard. I left my pack in the room and locked the door. I then took the time to relieve myself in the outhouse and returned to the guild hall.
“Perfect timing Ed.” George said. I noticed there were a couple more people sitting in the hall and another young man at the table. Yonson was nursing a beer. “This is Bran, Bran this is Ed.”
“Pleased to meet you.” I took a seat and saw the one medallion he was wearing along with the sword and shield he had.
“Same. George says you two are headed into the forest.” Bran said.
“Yeah. Seems good for a first expedition. So where are you from?” I asked.
“East from the coast. Little town called Fish Guts. I know, stupid name, nothing I can do. I was wondering if we could team up, safety in numbers.” He seemed well built and didn’t have an attitude that would make it hard to spend time with him.
“I don’t have a problem.” I looked at George and he nodded. “We are leaving tomorrow morning at dawn. Probably spend at least a ten-day out there, so pack for a little bit more. Full name?” I asked.
“Why?”
“Party invite, guild secret.”
“Oh, so you know about that?” Yonson said. “Someone is spilling guild secrets.” He had a grin on his face. That just made me really annoyed at hag face for swindling some copper off me.
“Branier Bigfish.” I looked at him. That was a crappy name.
“Invite Branier Bigfish. Just say yes. You can look at the party by saying party panel.”
“Yes.”
“How?” He said looking me.
“I am special.” I replied.
“Oh, something interesting?” Yonson asked.
“He is level four.” Bran said. I kept my face calm despite being really annoyed that my secret was being spilled
“Level four already, aren’t you the overachiever. Well at least you guys should survive. Just don’t get swarmed, swear that is the only thing mages are good for. You get a swarm coming and then BAM!” He slammed his mug down but didn’t spill a single drop as the ale leapt above the rim. He was either very lucky, skilled, or was not as drunk as he appeared.
“Get some mana and then spray fire over them monsters. The screams are hilarious. Don’t try eating monsters though. You can get cursed and then stuff is really hard to remove.”
“Cursed?” Bran asked. I had read about this from my reading but didn’t say anything since I was curious what Yonson would say.
“That is where you start transforming bit by bit. Knew a guy who ate wargs since he hated carrying food, swore by it. On double full moon he transformed, half man, half monster. A werewolf. One of the toughest fights of my life, thing just wouldn’t die. So no eating monster meat.” Corruption of the flesh and mind to Chaos was the way the books had put it.
I knew the church approved all animals to be consumed but I never realized why until now. I just hadn’t made the connection. They probably wanted to avoid people becoming cursed. I wondered if eating a dragon would let me breathe fire. It would probably give me scales on my butt instead.
“Ever find any treasure?” George asked.
“Treasure you say? Hah! Maybe if you kill all the monsters to get to their stash. But that is like an extermination. You need a large party or some rank five people. I did go with a rank five ice mage once. There was a minotaur camp in the mountains. A number of other rank threes, but he was the only rank five.”
“We killed a few patrols, nothing serious and then we came to the main camp. Twenty adventurers against two hundred angry minotaurs. Now I am not a coward, but that was a damn scary sight as they charged at us with axes. Now mister mage was doing nothing so far the whole trip but when that swarm came at us…” We all leaned in, even I couldn’t help myself.
“He wiped them out. Ice spikes shot out of the ground impaling their hooves and legs. Then an ice cold wind bit down on them. Out of two hundred only eighty reached our lines and those were injured and exhausted. About the only good mage out there I say. Anyways the loot was good. A lot of metal weapons but nothing enchanted. Most monsters don’t use mana except what they have naturally. I definitely would run the other way if I saw an enemy mage.”
“Almost never a rank one mage in the guild. Normally they go straight to rank two since they spend years training. Even then, very few ever sign up with us. Too much risk. Once they blow their load they are useless as shit, even more so I would think since you can’t leave them behind to lighten your load.” We all let out a laugh at that. I followed along but the humor was a lot more rural than I was used to. It also didn’t help that I considered myself a mage.
Food finally came out and we ate. A small piece of bread and some stew. Not as much meat as mother used to make it or as good, but it was fine. Definitely chicken by the way it tasted. The rest of the evening was spent sitting around telling stories about our lives. Nothing too serious but it felt nice to relax a bit after traveling so much.
***
I was up before dawn and made sure to stretch out. While I didn’t exercise or cut myself since we had started this trip I made sure to stretch out every morning and evening. I figured it would improve my dexterity and I didn’t want to lower my stamina with other exercises. Once I was done I meditated until George woke up. He finally got up and I stopped meditating. I was pleased at the hour I had gotten in, increasing my mana by five.
We went downstairs and Bran was also up. We left our room keys on the counter and went into the town. We purchased enough bread and dried meat for fifteen days each. It was a fair amount, but I didn’t want to starve or forage excessively.
We then exited the town and turned off on a small path into the woods. “So what is the plan?” Bran asked.
“Find and kill stuff. We get paid for goblin and warg ears. Equal split between the three of us. Also I would get your weapons out.” Bran looked at me with my sword in my hand.
“Ah, good idea.” I was surrounded by idiots. The guild really should have a training class or something.
“George can get his bow strung and an arrow off in ten seconds.” I said. Keeping a bow strung all the time would ruin it, which was unfortunate. Thankfully George was quick enough at it that he wouldn’t be useless.
“Yeah, so please protect me.” He said.
“Also no talking in the woods. On the road it is one thing, but I don’t want to fall for an ambush.” They both nodded. “Alright, we will stop for lunch and couple of hour
s before dark we will set up camp.” The rest of the day was quiet and uneventful and boring.
We stopped by a stream and set up camp. Bran at least knew how to set up some snares while George and I gathered firewood. We had our bread and dried meat and sat near the fire relaxing. “So how long do you think it is till we see something?” George asked.
“At least a couple of days. The Gilleth ruins at the mountain near the center of the forest are at least a ten-day from Jopel and none of the villagers have seen any goblins.” I replied. “I was thinking instead of directly heading for the ruins we make a long loop around it. Probably take two ten-days but that shouldn’t be too bad.”
“Could work, we have to catch some stuff though. I have seen signs, but nothing else.” Bran said. I had also noted the distinct lack of forest life during the day.
“Well if we find a deer, George can shoot it.” I said.
“Yeah definitely.” George said.
“I have to ask, what is in that weird pouch?” Bran gestured at my map case. I opened it up and pulled out a map.
“Maps, let me see if I can find Fish Guts on this.” I gave him a grin. I looked over the map and eventually spied the tiny script that labeled the town on the coast. “Here it is.” I pointed out and Bran came over to look. I showed him his town, Azalon, and where we were.
“Huh, never seen a map before.” He replied and sat back down and I put the map away. “You do a lot of stuff like that?” He asked. I had talked about growing up in a scribe shop a little bit last night.
“I grew up in a scribe shop, I actually copied all these maps myself. If you want I can make up a sheet so you can practice reading.” I offered. He looked at me for a bit. “I did the same for George.” He gave me a sheepish grin and pulled out his sheet to go back over his alphabet he had been working on during his travels.
“Sure.” I spent the rest of the night drawing a sheet of letters and numbers and going through them with him. We stopped as the light began to fade. “We will rotate watches. George you take first, I will take second, Bran you can get third. We will rotate each night.”
Adventures of a Scribe Page 5
