How to Be an Adventurer- World of Gimmok

by Damien Hanson

  Yenrab nodded, though his thoughts were troubled by the statement. Two good men died in that dungeon crawl. It had not been easy at all.

  ***

  After leaving the burned-out husk of a building, moving out further to avoid discovery, they found some unwelcome alley that simply begged to be explored. It was well overlaid with thick sewage and muck, and the occasional lump hinted at a dead man resting beneath. But the choice was fortuitous for, within, they found a shabby and worn out inn that was well out of sight. After haggling with the owner and pawning off some of their gear, the adventurers had been finally able to get some much-needed slumber. Though the odor of the foul place corrupted their dreams, it was, overall, a rather welcome and well-earned respite.

  The next morning they all awoke well into the daylight. They were tired, aching, and sore.

  The fact that the group was allowed to sleep well into noon, and the fact that the innkeeper did not come to roust them, suggested that business was rare and that he rarely cared about business that he had.

  Unlike the morning previous, spirits were neither high nor cheerful.

  “This bites.”

  “What bites you, Carric? Shall I take care not to be bitten?” Tracy looked about with a bit of worry.

  “You bite, Tracy. Or at least that is what your mom said,” Bern joked with a bit of rancor. He still wasn’t feeling that great about the failures of the day before.

  Tracy laughed, feeling much better than the rest of the lot. “Really. Well, your mom rather enjoyed it.”

  “Guys, let’s be serious!” Yenrab bellowed, trying to jar people out of their half-asleep bitterness. “We are broke. Absolutely without gold, silver, or even a copper. I had to hock my bear trap which, to be honest, breaks my heart. How is a man supposed to hunt in this city without a bear trap?”

  “Umm . . .” Bern started.

  “No, whatever it is, I don’t want to hear it. We need jobs,” complained Carric.

  “Yeah, well, ya know, I have some ideas on that,” Yenrab said, holding up the adventurer’s tome.

  “Doesn’t that book kinda feel like a crutch?” Bern observed. Everyone glared at him. He backed off, hands up. “Hey, hey, mates, I’m just saying it seems to make things easier than they should be.”

  “I’m good with easy,” Tracy said, smiling.

  Yenrab paged through the tome, its title shining in bliss.

  “Alright, guys, there is an adventurers’ guild headquartered in this city,” the half-human said, looking over all of them. “We can go there, become members, pay occasional tithes and dues, and most importantly, we can get jobs. A quest maybe. Or an escort mission. Or something. I mean, really, we need to eat, and without a bear trap, that requires money.”

  Bern cleared his throat.

  “No, Bern, no. We are not going to do the whole ‘pickpockets, sing a tune, romance a stranger’ nonsense again. And I’m not going to another tournament. We live, we learn. Job time.”

  Chapter 22: The Call to Adventure

  The party tramped down the narrow, uneven stairway, creaking and groaning a thousand deaths as it withstood their sullen weight. The innkeeper gave them a brief, half-bald nod as they left, himself well acquainted with the signs of miserable poverty.

  Daylight did nothing to enliven or otherwise improve this forgotten corner of Gennopolis. The narrow walkways were dirty and unkept. Rotted trash and fly-covered feces piled in pools of muck. It certainly wasn’t the sort of sight meant to brighten up anyone’s day.

  But, on the opposite track, neither was it a complete negative. The walk out from this wretched place, the bottom of bottoms, was cathartic. Each of the adventurers knew that from here on out, the land would be bountiful and kind. They could feel that this was not the end, but rather, the beginning. They were the ashes from which they would rise up. They knew they didn’t belong here. They were destined for great things, even if they were starting at the bottom.

  ***

  Carric paused in his mental composition, struggling to find the words. This was going to be a great story. Or maybe even a better ballad. But at the moment it needed more expression and greater feel.

  The real-life rest of them didn’t seem to quite share his same optimism, though.

  “This is a really long walk,” Tracy complained, hir stomach growling in anger at its lack of sustenance. Back in Freemeet, ze could simply have plucked fruits from the bushes that lined the paths, or even plucked apples from the orchards. They all put some work into tending these plants, and they all equally reaped the benefits therein. Here, though, the only thing that was free was the garbage that people threw onto the streets.

  Bern looked about, shielding his eyes against the full glory of noon, the sun’s wiry arms and fingers poking and prodding into his eyes.

  “It’s a warm day as falls go,” the assassin added, a small bit of sweat slowly threading through his bushy black hair. “Maybe I should just quick . . .”

  “No!” Yenrab bellowed, his poor stomach stressed at not being spoiled. “Maybe I’m crazy, but I think so long as we have this tome, we are going to get into trouble for doing bad things.”

  “There’s nothing bad about not starving, mate,” Bern Sandros informed him with a slight tic of irritation. “Besides, it isn’t like the merchants here earned that fruit.”

  “Power to the People!” Carric said. Yenrab growled. A nearby stall owner heard the sound and tripped over his own legs in fright. The rest of the party looked at him and quieted.

  “Look, we’ll get through this. How to be an Adventurer has told us where to go, and it hasn’t failed us yet.”

  “But . . .” Carric began, raising his finger to make a point.

  “No,” Yenrab spoke with conviction. “It just tells us stuff that works and lets us figure out the how. If anything, we have failed it. Badly.”

  Everyone gave that some thought as they continued on their way until, finally, there it was.

  The structure looked like a keep, for it had its own walls within the walls of this great city, and through the gates of outerwall, lay a large and well-tended yard filled with all sorts of obstacles and training instruments. The Adventurers’ Guild! A place of wealth and power with dreams legislated by a central body. Bern shivered at the thought.

  There were a variety of structures within the place, the closest to the gate, but passed the guardhouse, being a tavern. Over the door a sign read: “New Adventurers Enter Here. Serious Inquiries Only.” The sign was well vandalized, adventurers more often than not being the type who took affront to such commands.

  Bern gave an impressed whistle.

  “You adventurers really do have a thing for taverns, don’t you?” he said with a smirk, his eyes riveted to a young woman next to it in bikini chainmail. She was fighting a mock battle with wooden swords against two young human males, both fully clad in protective leather and padding.

  “That does not look practical,” Carric noted, his eyes locked on tight.

  Yenrab blushed, his face turning yellow at the cheeks while he fiddled a bit with his too tight leggings.

  “Friends, she seems to wield some sort of sorcery, for they cannot seem to hit,” Tracy noted in awe as they themselves stumbled about awkwardly, their eyes stuck to her person. She bested them easily and then bowed to their prostrate forms.

  Yenrab hurried off towards the nearest latrine.

  “What got into him?” Tracy wondered aloud in awe. Looking around, he found that Bern had also disappeared, perhaps into some shadows for tactical purposes.

  Carric simply laughed.

  “Good, but not enough meat on those bones,” he reminisced, thinking of an ogress in pigtails.

  ***

  Inside the place, people lounged about, gathered at tables over flasks of their favorite beverages and grog, boasting and pantomiming their latest success. The bar was large with so many benches and tables that it was a wonder they were all able to fit. An adjoining chamber, also large, s
erved as a cheap but effective flop house for members of the guild hard on their luck or, perhaps, being pursued by the law.

  The people who were present didn’t look that impressive, really, though they surely represented the bulk of adventurers in the realm. They looked a lot like the party themselves. Not rich, not that experienced, young, and in search of something better.

  “I’m not impressed,” snorted Bern Sandros, thinking back to the assassin that ultimately brought him here.

  “Shush,” Carric said. “You are just like them. The ballads don’t really talk about guilds much, so my guess is that the greats go freelance.”

  “Freelance?” Tracy asked in hir strange fashion. “Are lances a thing that must be freed?”

  Carric sighed, then saw that Yenrab too was confused.

  Of course, he wouldn’t know. The barbarians of the Western Reaches don’t have to face up against the heavy destriers that the warriors of plains and tundra fear in their every march.

  “When out of the trees and in the open, warriors on a well-muscled war horse, with very long spears, will ram it into the heads and bodies of anyone unlucky enough to get in their way. They are expensive warriors and often nobility, but some of them leave and hire themselves out for princely sums. I suggest that the greats leave the guild and do the same.”

  Bern nodded.

  “Even a really well-to-do assassin wouldn’t face a knight on the field. A lancer is a right bludklap, no matter your skills.”

  “Well, ya know, I could just duck, maybe lie on my back, and gut the horses!”

  “No, you couldn’t, Yenrab,” Bern answered with a bit of dark aplomb. “Lances, free or otherwise, are a right up nightmare. Stick to forests, cities, and I guess dungeons. It doesn’t feel right, exactly, but better that than a spear through the skull.”

  ***

  The bartender sized them up as they talked and came out from behind the bar. He was a beefy man, his ebony skin covered in a steel breastplate that allowed his well-muscled arms to show off their girth. He walked up to them, huddled together near the entrance to the place, and scowled.

  “Go back to the city. There’s plenty of berth in the Guard.”

  They all looked at him, slack-jawed and a bit intimidated. This man didn’t look like the riffraff they saw about them. He looked accomplished and self-made.

  “Well, hey now!” Carric protested. “Why should we do that?”

  The man looked up and afar a bit, then back down at him.

  “Because you aren’t ready. None of you are ready. None of them are ready either. YOU HEAR THAT?!” he yelled to the crowd.

  “Piss off,” a half-orc barbarian yelled, with his halfling thief, elven wizard, and dwarven friend egging him on.

  “That group, right there, they are going to die. Soon. Maybe not on the next quest, but soon. You can stay in the city, get a nice wage, sleep well, and die at home with your wife and kids. Get out of here.”

  The party looked at him with astonished stares.

  “But, hey, the shawoman in Freemeet could bring back the dead,” Tracy said with a strained whisper, just loud enough for the old warrior to hear him.

  “Pah!” he snorted in bitter distaste. “There are maybe two thousand sentients on this continent that can do that. That sounds like a lot, but there are five hundred million sentients living here. And the power required to do it costs a lot of gold sacrifice. And they can’t be dead long. If they are dead long, only a handful of beings can do anything about it. And that’s all assuming that the body is still around for most of them. Even rich and mighty heroes die, and they don’t come back.”

  He looked down at his hands.

  Carric had a growing look on his face—one of hesitant recognition.

  “Are you David Brit?” he asked in wonder.

  “Yes. And you’ll think on this if you really want it.”

  Carric looked astounded.

  “But . . . but . . . the ballads. You are so righteous and powerful! The Hero of Slackwater! The Smashammer of Girdoulos, Sky Tyrant over Mt. Thoodros! You are a dragonslayer, the killer of a demigod, and a leader of the republic!”

  “Was. Bard, do you know of my party?”

  “Yes, of course! Your adventuring band! Catarina the Quick, Specios the Taken, Ornos the Angry—I . . . oh.”

  “They are gone. All of them. Forever. They took arms with me, and they were destroyed. Catarina disintegrated and gone to dust. Specios destroyed by his own patron, going against the demon to save the world and having his soul consumed. Ornos slashing down the emperor of Nemedia in defiance, but then being taken and torn to pieces in the public square, each piece then cooked and consumed, the bones ground to dust and thrown into the Great River.

  “Adventuring is not a fun or easy task. Don’t do it. You’ll end up the only one alive, swimming in wealth you don’t care to spend, wishing you could go back and do things right. It will eat your mind and soul.”

  Yenrab raised his hand. It stayed there a bit as the man stared again into his history.

  “Yes, half-orc. What do you wish to ask?”

  “I know this life isn’t easy. But it is how I’ve always been, I think. Didn’t you save people? Didn’t you feel like you needed to?”

  David Brit stared at the barbarian, who refused to flinch, and then turned his head aside.

  “Yes, I did. I always did.”

  Everyone waited for him to continue, but he didn’t. The silence grew longer.

  “Hey, uh, so can we join or what?” Tracy broke the silence, wanting to have things done with.

  The man looked at hir with a stare that then softened. He smiled.

  “Well, you can’t say I didn’t warn you. Think about what I said. Though you tikes never do. The Guard isn’t far off.”

  Yenrab dropped his pack, its weight slamming it to the floor and temporarily quieting all in the tavern. As the sound resumed, he opened it and pulled out the adventurer’s tome.

  “Well, if it isn’t that damn old thing,” David Brit said in wonder. Looking at the adventuring party with new eyes, he simply added, “Follow me.”

  ***

  In a backroom of the tavern, the champion adventurer gestured for them to hand him the book. It fell through his fingers as if it weren’t even in existence.

  “The gods be damned. I thought that might happen.”

  He appraised them all with a more evaluative look.

  “Not just adventurers, but god-anointed. Double-damned, if you want to know the truth. Which one of you was stupid enough to pick this up?”

  Yenrab raised a massive arm, looking a bit sheepish.

  “It was too interesting not to,” the half-orc admitted without being asked.

  David Brit nodded.

  “What is it?” Tracy asked in curiosity. The rest looked on with equal attentiveness.

  David nodded again, as if this were an answer. “Can all of you hold onto it? Can all of you read it?”

  Carric answered for the whole of them, “All of us have had some time with the book. Are we cursed?”

  “Ha-ha. Maybe. What do you all want to do with your lives? Let’s start with the bard.”

  “I want to become a tremendous master of my musical arts.”

  He nodded. “That is a good goal. Rogue?”

  “I wish to be an assassin.”

  The champion stared at him. Bern grimaced and added, “I wish to save my people. They are living a life of lies under a horrid system of falsehoods.”

  David Brit nodded. “And you, wild mage, what is it that you are looking for?”

  “Honestly?”

  “Yes.”

  “I want to find myself. I want to know the world and how I and my people fit into it.”

  David nodded again.

  “And, barbarian, what is it that you desire?”

  “I just wanna save people. You know, make the world a better place.”

  The champion nodded with a pained and yet very sympathetic look
on his face.

  “I also wanted the same. And I got it. But it cost so much. Are you all willing to lose everything in pursuit of your hearts’ desires?”

  ***

  It had been an interesting bout of words. They all sat down at a table, grateful for the stew provided.

  Entry into the guild was apparently quite simple. Ten percent of earnings to the guild in exchange for them arranging various contracts and missions. They could, strange enough, also act in freelance. This was something that none of them thought was standard. The free food and mead on their table also didn’t seem right. David Brit was quite adamant, though, that they have it. Things were looking pretty good, really, though they would have been better if he had answered questions about the book. He simply told them it was different for everybody and left it at that.

  And he gave them their first mission. That was important. There was no more talk about doing the easy stuff for little pay. The legendary adventurer of the republic simply told them what needed to be done and no longer asked them to reconsider their options. All of the things they had talked about not long ago now seemed to be ancient history.

  Not so much with the party though.

  “We’re all gonna die,” Tracy said with a matter-of-fact tone as he spooned stew and thick broth onto his bread.

  “You don’t know that.” Carric glowered, suggesting that perhaps the sorcerer had a point.

  Bern was a bit angry himself. “I think it might well be worth it, but damn, do I wish I didn’t hear all of that.”

  “Should I see what the adventurer’s tome says?” an innocent-faced Yenrab questioned.

  “No!” they quickly shut down.

  “You know, I always thought adventuring was all about *99ons,” Tracy ventured, his words lighting upon the sour mood. They all relaxed a bit. It gave them something else to think about.

  Ze was gazing at the parchment spread in front of them with a bit of a frown. “I didn’t know we would be looking for missing people.”

  Yenrab sighed, letting all of the thoughts of the moment go, and nodded. “At its very basic, it is simply dungeons and dragons. But I like to think of there being higher levels to the premise. Various editions in which different tasks become more important and quest-worthy.”