Announcement

I will be taking a break for Christmas, meaning no new chapters next week. The story will resume the regular schedule the following week.

Sophie, Jason and Humphrey left the wagon in the first town they came to. Being the closest to the city, it was a busy distribution hub. Making their way through the town, Sophie was startled at how many people seemed to know Jason. Some would wave, others approaching for a few words of greeting. How Jason kept all the names straight was beyond her.

Sophie observed the difference between how people treated Jason and Humphrey. Jason was approached without reservation and greeted like an old friend. Humphrey was treated with respect and reserve, no one speaking to him unless directly addressed.

“How do you know so many people here?” she asked Jason.

“I’ve passed through quite a few times,” Jason said.

“Surely you have as well,” Sophie asked Humphrey.

“He has,” Jason said. “A lot more than me. The Geller family seat is out in the delta, so Humphrey has been shuttling between the family compound and the family townhouse his whole life. All these people know what a big-shot he is.”

“Don’t they think the same of you?” she asked. “You’re roaming around with him and covered in expensive-looking equipment.”

“They know common when they see it,” Jason said.

On their way to the adventure noticeboard, they found a large group of people queuing up for something.

“The healer must be here today,” Jason said. “It’s good that they’re out and about now. It was really an eye-opener when I heard about Healer showing up at Jory ‘s place to lay down the law. Forced me to reassess the whole god scenario.”

“That must have been frustrating for you,” Humphrey said. “I know you can be adamant about things.”

“You should always welcome being proven wrong,” Jason said. “It means your understanding of the world just got a little bit better.”

“Says the guy who gets downright obnoxious about being right,” Humphrey said.

“I'm not saying I always welcome being wrong in the moment,” Jason acknowledged. “The important thing is to reflect on it and accept it, going forward.”

They reached the noticeboard and after looking them over, took them all. Plotting out the locations, they mapped an itinerary and set off from the town.

A tentacle wrapped around Sophie's other arm, the first one already being having been caught up. The fleshy blob of the monster's main body sported many, prehensile tentacles and she was running out of limbs. The supple tentacles were studded with sharp, bony protrusions that dug into her skin, lacing her body with cuts as the creature gripped around her arms, legs and torso. Desperately, she bit into a tentacle. Her abilities added damage to any unarmed attack, which turned out to really mean any unarmed attack as her bite severed the monster’s thin member. This freed her right arm to attack the tentacle binding her left with a more traditional assault.

Two tentacles severed, the monster withdrew into itself and made for the water.

“No you don’t,” Sophie told it, rushing forward to grip a tentacle in each hand. With a grunt of effort, she hauled it out of the water. Holding it in place with one hand at the base f a tentacle and her foot pushing down on it, she bent down and brutally pounded its bulbous body with her free fist.

You have defeated [Wetland Tentacloid].10 [Iron Spirit Coins] have been awarded to you.

Quest: [Notice: Wetland Tentacloid]

Objective complete: Eliminate [Wetland Tentacloid] 1/1.Quest complete.100 [Iron Spirit Coins] have been awarded to you.

“What spirit coins…ow!”

A bag appeared above her and fell down, bouncing off her head before dropping into the mud.

“What was that?” she complained as she picked up the bag to discover it was full of coins.

“Loot, “ Jason said with a grin.

“We didn’t get rewards, despite being in the group,” Humphrey observed.

“I don’t think moral support counts as an actual contribution,” Jason said.

“Do all adventurers get coins like this?” Sophie asked. “No wonder you’re all rich.”

“Actually, that’s a unique benefit of working with Jason,” Humphrey said.

“I’d rather you not spread that around,” Jason said. “I don’t want people trying to use me as a loot farm. If you had a storage space power, like Humphrey, here, the coins would have gone straight into that.”

“You should have Jason store your money until you buy yourself a dimensional bag,” Humphrey said. “It’s a reward well-earned.”

“You really think so?” she asked.

“It was alright,” Jason said. “Not great. You’re bleeding all over, your clothes are in tatters. You almost let that thing go full hentai monster on you.”

“What’s a hentai monster?” she asked.

“No idea,” Humphrey said. “I will say that I was on the verge of stepping in. Still, it was very good for your first monster hunt.”

“Yeah,” Jason acknowledged. “For the first time out you did alright. None of those cuts and scrapes are major. I got impaled in my first real monster fight. Luckily, I had a healing power.”

“I have one too,” Sophie said.

Ability: [Equilibrium] (Balance)

Special ability.Cost: None.Cooldown: NoneCurrent rank: Iron 0 (00%)Effect (iron): Meditate to slowly accrue instances of [Integrity], up to an instance threshold of ([Recovery] attribute +1). Instances quickly drop off when meditation ends..[Integrity] (heal-over-time, mana-over-time, stamina-over-time, holy): Periodically recover a small amount of health, stamina and mana. Additional instances have a cumulative effect.

They found some dry ground and she sat in a meditation pose to use it. It took time to heal her injuries, but Jason and Humphrey were willing to wait. The more she used it, the quicker the ability would advance.

“I’d give you something to clean yourself off, but you’ll be fighting again, soon,” Jason said.

“And he doesn’t want you to use up his crystal wash,” Humphrey said.

The second encounter was less precarious but still far from an ideal showing. Jason reluctantly supplied some crystal wash and fresh clothes from his storage space.

"You'll want to use those coins you're earning on some decent armour," Humphrey said.

“I know a guy who supplies quality light armour,” Jason said.

On the way to the next notice location, they arrived in a small village. Once again, Sophie was struck by how many people seemed to know Jason.

“Seriously, Asano, what’s going on?”

“I just get around a bit,” Jason said.

They stopped for lunch in an open-air eatery that served travelling merchants and passing adventurers. The owner treated Jason like visiting royalty.

“The baby was born two weeks gone, now,” the owner told Jason. “Healthy as you like.”

“That’s good to hear,” Jason said.

“If you hadn’t been there, I don’t know what would have happened,” he said.

“I’m sure it would have worked out. You aren’t so far from the city that you couldn’t have gone for a healer.”

“She was so sick, though. I’m not sure how long the baby could take it.”

“We got lucky,” Jason said. “I should make introductions. Johan, my friends, Humphrey and Sophie. This is Johan, who makes the best fried savoury puffs in the delta.”

“Any friends of Jason are more than welcome,” he said. “You’ll never need take out your purse in my establishment.”

Jason ordered for the three of them and Johan went inside to the kitchens.

“Is that’s what’s going on?” Sophie asked. “You’ve been out here healing people, like at Jory’s clinic?”

“More like curing,” Jason said. “I can’t heal injuries, just disease and poison. A few other things, but you don’t see a lot of curses in villagers.”

“Jason does it quite a lot,” Humphrey said. “During our field assessment for the Adventure Society, he was always holding the group up.”

“They let him stop for that?” Sophie asked.

“You try telling a crowd of sick people that you're too busy to help them,” Humphrey said. “In this one village there was a huge crowd and we were there all morning. The locals put on this big midday feast, which was actually really nice.”

“Those stops are less time-consuming now,” Jason said, “and often not necessary at all. The priests of the Healer are a lot more active since Healer replaced them all. They stopped charging for services, too, so people aren’t reliant on the chance I’ll be passing through.”

“The new attitude of the local Healer church has caused some disarray amongst the nobles,” Humphrey said. “Until Healer replaced his whole clergy, the church was largely at the beck and call of the noble families. Now they’re treated the same as the general populace and there’s been a lot of dissatisfaction.”

“There’s a lot of disruption to the upper crust going on lately,” Jason said. “First the healers, then the expedition, now these rumours about Jonah, Thadwick and the others.”

“Not to mention the inquiry,” Humphrey said. “Did you hear the entire Phael family had their Adventure Society membership revoked? Every one of them, even the silver-ranker.”

“I only dealt with them in the expedition support camp,” Jason said, “but even that left a nasty taste in the mouth. If the rest were like the ones I met, it’s not much of a surprise.”

While they waited for the food to come out, they discussed Sophie's performance against the monsters. Fighting humans in a city was very different to fighting monsters in marshes and swamps. Whether in a fighting pit or a dark alley, the footing was usually solid in a city.

The delta had slick mud, deceptively deep bog, random obstructions and plenty of places to hide or retreat into. Sophie had no experience fighting in such an environment, while the monsters were well-adapted to the locations in which they spawned. The elements that hurt her were things they could use to their advantage.

The inhuman appearance of monsters made it harder for her to read their intentions, which slowed her reactions. Their monstrous forms made many of her favoured attacks pointless, forcing her to use long-dismissed elements of her style. These were techniques she had barely thought about since her father had first taught them to her.

It wasn’t just their physical form that was an issue. Monsters lacked the doubt and hesitation of a more thoughtful opponent and she came to realise how much she relied on mind games in a fight. They were also possessed of a bloody determination, tenaciously fighting on after a human would have given up.

The final thing hurting her in the fights was that she was still getting used to her new abilities. She had been working on shifting her style to take best advantage of them, but it was still early days.

“What we’ve seen today has been good,” Jason said. “Obviously, there’s room for improvement but this is day one. We’re building a list of what we need to work on, which will show us where to focus the training. You and I fight the same way, but you’ve had more practice against people, where I’ve used it more against monsters. We can help each other.”

After lunch, they set out for the third and final job they had taken from the adventure board notice. After that would come the job they took from the jobs hall, which should take them into the evening.

“Do adventurers all run around doing this many jobs at once?” Sophie asked.

“Not at all,” Humphrey said. “It’s one way of picking out the good ones. They’re on the job a lot and they hit-up multiple contracts. That’s true at iron-rank, anyway. At higher ranks, it pays to give your contracts more caution and consideration, matching the jobs you take to your abilities.”

“That’s getting ahead of ourselves,” Jason said. “Let’s just concentrate on getting her into the Adventure Society, for now.”

He turned to Sophie.

“You get to choose the kind of adventurer you want to be,” he told her. “If you want to throw yourself into it and push your abilities to the limit, that's great. If you want to just be a nominal member and never actually hunt monsters, that's alright too.”

“No,” Sophie said. “I never thought I would have the chance to get a full set of essences. I want to see how far this can take me.”

“Me too,” Jason said. “Humphrey already knows because his Mum told him.”

“Hey,” Humphrey protested.

“You do talk about your mother a lot,” Sophie said, “and I've only known you since this morning.”