Chapter 22: Four, a Year, Steel, and Change

Adventurers. Warriors, free spirits, travellers, explorers. The title ‘adventurer’ covers many such roles, but the adventurer’s guild utilises their unique combination of battle strength, love of battle and general hardiness for the betterment of their surroundings.

What do adventurers hate the most? It’s not losing a fight, it’s not having to run away from a monster, it’s not failing a request.

It’s war.

You see, adventurers are, by nature, travellers. They don’t usually stay in one city forever, or even in the same kingdom. And what that means, of course, is that everyone suspects them of being everyone else’s spies.

- An unknown scholar

We head over to the guild early the next morning, feeling quite refreshed from the undisturbed sleep. I looked around, but Xiltroth doesn’t seem to be around. Already gone or not here yet?

We don’t know, so we decided to hang around for a short while.

People filter in and out, almost all of them wearing copper or iron guild tokens around their necks like we are. Some even have steel tokens, their bright gleam standing out amongst the crowd of dull tones and proving that their sharp eyes and tough bearing aren’t just for show.

Many of the copper ranks - and some iron ranks - are wearing chitinous armour instead of metal, doubtlessly because insect armour plates are so easy to get here, and therefore cheaper than conventional alternatives.

Quite a few people look curiously at us, a pair of dwarves and a human sitting at a table in the adventurer’s guild in a demon city. Unusual, to say the least. Not all of the gazes are friendly, but nobody starts anything.

The guild quickly fills to the point where there are queues to talk to staff, and the area in front of the request board has a semicircle of people looking at it with people hovering around behind, eager to fill the gap when someone finishes looking.

A short while later, the hubbub starts quieting down to whispered conversations. I look around to see what caused it, and notice a conspicuous group coming through the doorway.

The leading demon is large, wearing a suit of plate armour. A long sword hilt is visible over his shoulder, easily large enough to accommodate a two-handed grip. Despite the hilt being over his shoulder, the tip of the sheath is near the back of his knee, evidently a massive weapon. A thick, straight horn protrudes from the top of his completely bald head. I wince at the thought of him headbutting someone.

Slinking behind in his shadow is a second demon, wearing some sort of close-fitting, flexible black armour. Two long daggers are sheathed by his sides, and his eyes are darting about the room rapidly. Whatever horns he may have are hidden by a long patch of mossy green hair.

The third person in the group is very unusual indeed. Wavy blonde hair cascades down to his neck, and his eyes are a piercing green. With the addition of pale skin, pointed ears and a tall, thin stature, it became instantly clear that this was an elf. He is an archer too, if the massive longbow on his back is anything to go by. His armour is also light and flexible, but with a more regular brownish tone.

Bringing up the rear is a demon wearing a brown, white trimmed robe. I doubt he has no protective gear on under it, though. At his waist a book shaped holster is attached, obviously holding his grimoire.

All of them have a bluish-silver token hanging around their necks.

Mithril ranked adventurers, huh? I’ve not seen a proper bunch of them yet. Or an elf, for that matter.

…A bit underwhelming, actually. Seeing an elf, I mean, not the mithril ranked adventurers. I mean, dwarves are really short and drink a lot, demons have purple skin, whacky hair and horns, but elves?

Whoo, they’re tall and have pointy ears. Not to diss the race or anything, but… yeah.

People move out of their way as they stride towards the counter, register for a request, and again as they leave.

After a short while, the place returns to its usual rowdy ways, and we go back to drinking.

Just as I finish my tankard and am about to propose we call it quits, Xiltroth comes in through the door. I start to get up and call out to him, but Jakin stops me with a single word, “Initiation”.

I nod slowly, settling back down into my chair. The initiation fight is standard for any newbie adventurer. Through it, we should be able to see his close combat fighting skills.

Predictably, when he is only halfway across the room, a hulking mass of a demon with horns sprouting on either side of his head stands up from a table near him, and stands in front of him with drink still in hand.

Splashing some booze into his mouth, he leers down at Xiltroth. “What’re you doing here, kid? This place is for warriors, not wimps. Why don’t you go run home to your momma?” He crouches down so that his head is only slightly above Xiltroth’s eye level.

“Hey, whassamatter? Ain’t got no balls? Hit me! Or you too scared, wimp?” He says, practically spitting in Xiltroth’s face.

Xiltroth shifts, and the next moment the man is falling backwards. He hits the ground heavily, the floor shaking under his considerable weight. Grunting painfully, he starts to get up, but is stopped by Xiltroth’s staff pressing onto his throat.

“Who’s the wimp now?” He growls angrily.

“Alright, that’s enough!” A staff member came along to break up the fight, and Xiltroth is moved along to the end of the short line.

“Not bad. Not bad at all.” Says Boaz.

Jakin, however, is still sceptical. “Yeah, he’s got some skill, but can he kill anything with that staff of his?”

“Only one way to find out.” I say, smiling.

To wait a few more minutes for him to register is nothing after waiting over half an hour.

After he has strung his copper token around his neck, we get up and walk over to him. Once he notices us, he stops moving towards the exit and instead turns to us, his expression a little surprised.

“Morning Xiltroth.” I say.

“Good morning Aaron… Jakin, Boaz.” He says. The dwarves say good morning in return, and Xiltroth says, “I would have… thought that, you would be hunting, by now.”

I shrug. “We wondered if you might want company on your first proper hunt.”

“That would be great, thanks.” He nods.

We head out of the city towards the south-east, and into the woods of Zel. Or, as it’s more commonly known among adventurers here, the woods of big bugs.

Me and the twins watch in silence, weapons in hand and ready to intervene at any second as Xiltroth fights a giant beetle.

It charges at him, mandibles wide and ready to crush whatever it can grasp between them. Xiltroth sidesteps, swinging his staff at one of the insect’s legs.

The blow shifts the beetle’s leg slightly, drawing a short line in the leafy dirt, but has no effect beyond that. Turning, the beetle again tries to bite him, but Xiltroth jumps backwards, and again when he lands, quickly making distance.

The insect extends its elytra, the wings behind them buzzing into motion as it makes a flying leap at Xiltroth. But instead of dodging to either side, he moves towards it, ducking below it and thrusting his staff up at its rear as it passes overhead.

As a result, the beetle flips and lands on its back, and starts rocking and wildly waving its legs in an attempt to right itself. Xiltroth jumps over the flailing limbs and thrusts his staff into the beetle’s neck – the exoskeleton there is weaker than the armour on the back of the beetle, and is crushed under the strike.

“So, how did I do?” Xiltroth asks, wiping his staff on the grass to remove any gore that had clung to it.

“Pretty good, but you might want to finish that off.” I say, pointing at the beetle that is still gently waving its legs. “Insects are notoriously tenacious.”

He looks at the still-moving insect in surprise, and thrusts his staff in again, finally causing its legs to still.

Boaz walks over and slips his fingers underneath the beetle. With a heave, he flips it back onto its stomach. It still doesn’t move, so it’s definitely dead. “There be no damage on any of these armour plates, we should be able to extract all of them.” He turns to Xiltroth. “Not bad. Not bad at all.”

Jakin looks pensive. “Yeh can pick locks, can’t yeh Xiltroth? Can yeh disarm traps as well?”

“I- maybe? I’ve never… done it before, but as long as, it isn’t something too… complicated, I should be able to take a trap apart, without activating it.” Xiltroth stutters.

“Right then, do yeh want to join our party?” Jakin says bluntly.

Xiltroth is flabbergasted. “I- can I- um… Yes?”

Deep in the woods, a human man stands alone, surrounded by trees and the sound of chittering and buzzing of oversized arthropods. The rough, bulky iron armour that he wears over most of his body has many thin scratches and gouges running along its surface, and is smeared in places with mud and grass stains.

Loosely held in one gauntleted hand is a mace, the gleaming steel that its flanges are made of covered partially by disgusting yellow and green lumpy fluids; the remains of earlier encounters. His other hand is not covered in a gauntlet, and instead wears only a comfortable leather glove, the palm cut away in an unusual modification. This hand hangs idly by his side.

He is apparently unconcerned by the rhino-sized beetle scuttling down the side of a tree towards him, its chitinous legs bending branches out of its way as it descends from the canopy. It isn’t until the insect is almost upon him that he strikes at it, its head pulverised into a mess of shattered exoskeleton, blood and brains by the single blow.

Moving his mace up and down in one swift movement, he flicks a few of the larger pieces of gore off it.

During this whole event, the man doesn’t send more than a glance at the beetle. It is simply that the giant beetles in these woods aren’t a suitable opponent for him; they aren’t even worth his time.

Moving deeper and deeper into the woods, the man’s lightly sun-darkened face grows less casual and more focused as he ventures into the territory of stronger monsters, the pale scars running down one side of his face rippling as the muscles below them shift.

Alert as he is, his ears pick up the sound of armoured legs drumming into wood. This sound repeats nearly a hundred times in a mere second, and it represented the approach of a much more dangerous foe than mere beetles.

It crawled towards him, a long, almost snakelike segmented body trailing behind it for over ten meters. Swift, strong and poisonous on top of it all, the giant centipede lingers in the nightmares of those who survive meeting it.

In barely a second, it is almost upon him. Perhaps he can achieve the same feat as the beetle, crushing its head with a single blow?

But no, he jumps to one side, perhaps cautious of its poisonous mandibles. Running alongside it, he breaks several of its many legs as he passes, before jumping over it and repeating the process on the other side as it curls back on itself, trying to catch him.

However, despite his heavy armour and pack, he outruns and outmanoeuvres it at every turn, and it starts to squirm wildly as it loses more and more of a dwindling supply of legs.

Eventually, it is left with two rows of broken sticks, wriggling about like a worm as it desperately tries to entrap the man.

Wielding his mace, he slams it down repeatedly on a segment just behind the head, until there are only a few tenuous connections between it and the head. Grabbing the head, he rips it off and stuffs it in a sack from his bag, slinging it over his shoulder and walking away as the rest of it still flails pointlessly behind him, not realising that it is already dead.

Taking a few slow breaths to steady his breathing, he continues on his way. Steadily moving forward, he carefully searches the ground, and eventually finds what he came for: a few clumps of herbs that have almost the exact same appearance as dead leaves. The only difference is their texture, which feels like you’re rolling dirt between your fingers.

The aptly named Earthleaf herbs are prolific throughout the inner regions of the woods of Zel, however, with the strength of the monsters present there, as well as the difficulty of differentiating the herbs from the many dead leaves littering the ground, the reward for collecting them is still substantial.

He breaks off the herbs at the stem, placing them carefully in a box that is already over half full of them, one by one. Only the leaves are useful for alchemy, and if the roots are left the herbs have a chance of regrowing there, eventually.

The box he puts in his pack, arranging the things inside it so that the box won’t jostle about as he moves, and risk damaging the herbs.

Looking about for a while more, he finds some more herbs before starting to head back woods. After all, the request they accepted isn’t limited to a specific quantity. The more they bring, the more they will be paid.

Which is also why they decided to split up for this request. As long as they aren’t going within the innermost regions of the woods, they are confidant that they can defeat any monster they come across, even alone.

Still, unforeseen circumstances are always possible, which is why they meet up every day at a pre-appointed place and decide beforehand on the directions they will search that day. That way, if someone doesn’t come back at the end of the day, they know where to look.

Otherwise… well, the woods of Zel occupy massive tracts of land, such that the four cities that lay on its borders require three or four days to travel between them on foot. Finding someone within such a vast area is nigh impossible.

He follows marks he’d previously made while searching through the woods, and after an hour or so, makes it to a small area that has been swept clear of leaves and twigs. An unlit campfire is in the middle, ringed by stones.

Glancing around, there doesn’t seem to be anyone there, but he continues looking, even checking the tree branches that are outstretched above him. Finally, he smiles at a particular spot in the canopy that looks just like any other. “I see you, Xiltroth. You can come down now.”

The leaves ripple, and a strange demon lightly drops to the ground. His clothes have a mottled pattern not unlike that of leafy foliage, and even his face is painted in similar colours. He flips down his hood to reveal hair as white as snow. “How did you spot me this time, Aaron?” Xiltroth asks. “I thought I covered everything!”

“You did, and I almost didn’t see you.” Aaron says. “But you were looking at me, and I managed to spot your red eyes.”

“How am I supposed to cover up my eyes? I need them to see!” Xiltroth says, frustrated.

Aaron shrugs. “Maybe… and maybe not. With senses enhanced by mana reinforcement, you might not even need to have your eyes open to know where people are. Just listen for the sounds they make, and that should tell you where they are.”

Xiltroth’s eyes widen. “Why didn’t I think of that?” He says, mostly to himself.

“I should try training to do that as well, I think. If you rely on your sight, you can be easily disabled by a simple cloud of dust.” Aaron says contemplatively, thinking back to a time when he himself had used a cloud of earth magic to blind attacking archers. “By the way, how did you go this time?”

“Not bad, I found quite a few patches of it today. How about you?” Xiltroth asks.

Aaron takes out his box, and Xiltroth whistles appreciatively. “I’m nearly full.” Says Aaron.

Another voice speaks. “Aye, and I’ve about had it looking for these plants! Dwarves aren’t made for this, we’re about fighting, striding down tunnels, striking at iron!”

Aaron and Xiltroth turn to see Jakin striding into the clearing, wearing a suit of steel armour. He’d had one made a short while ago, and while he still says its quality isn’t up to dwarven standards, he did admit that it wasn’t bad for the work of a demon smith.

“Why didn’t you become a blacksmith, then?” Asks Xiltroth. Then, perhaps realising that his question might have been a bit inappropriate, he apologises. “I didn’t mean, um, sorry?”

Jakin takes a deep breath. “Don’t be. It’s no big secret… Well, me and Boaz were all set to be blacksmiths. Our Pa got us an apprenticeship to a local blacksmith. He was no master, but… well, it was a start.” He shrugs.

Taking another breath, he continues. “It was going well, then the first time he let me forge a blade… Just a knife, but I was excited, and a bit nervous, too. My hand slipped, the hammer strike went awry, and, well…” He gestures to the scar on his face.

“I got kicked out of the forge. My brother, bless him, gave up his own chance at being what we’d always dreamed of, just to follow me.” Jakin looks sorrowful, and takes a quick draught from a flask that I know contains a light beer. “Right shame it was, too. Boaz was always better at forging than me.” He sighs regretfully.

They sit in the clearing for a while. More as something to do than something that needs to be done, Aaron gathers wood for the fire, and sets it ablaze with a spark of magic. A thin trail of smoke soon drifts gently skywards, creating a pillar that connects the heavens and earth.

Watching the clouds float slowly by, he considers what it might be like standing atop the clouds, looking down and seeing that same pillar from the other side. His imagination soon provides him with an image; a twisting column, moving ever towards him but ever the same length, pools around his feet, dying the white floor an ashen grey. Looking up, a sea of greens and brown drifts by, taking the column with it as it drags across the floor and final breaks free into the great abyss below.

Aaron appreciates the image, but slowly he frowns at the vividness of the image… Something like that, could his imagination really create it? It felt more like, almost like… a memory? But no, that…

Boaz walks into the clearing, seating himself with a groan on the ground, and the matter fades from Aaron’s mind, forgotten.

“Please tell me that we be going back to the city now.” Boaz says, stretching his feet towards the fire, still in his own armour. Naturally, it is the same as his twin brother’s.

“Sorry, we all decided that we’d be staying another day.” Jokes Aaron. Boaz’s face falls.

“I’m just joking, we’re going back.” Aaron admits, chuckling.

They exchange banter for a few minutes, then do what few things they need to do before leaving. Xiltroth dumps some dirt on the fire to put it out, everyone picks up their packs, and they all head out.

(POV Aaron)

After reaching town again, we head to the guild and turn in our request, earning almost a full gold in the process. High risk, high reward; that’s how it works, generally.

Split between four, it’s less, but still enough to supply food and pay for the room at the inn for well over a month.

Thus, we sit at a table at the guild, celebrating in the way many adventurers have before us; booze and food. The steel tokens hanging around our necks make our moods all the merrier, since we will now be able to take more dangerous and lucrative requests, as well as greater respect from our fellow adventurers in the guild.

Here’s how it goes in terms of fame by rank: copper, nobody knows you, and it’s doubtful that anyone will notice if you stop coming to the guild.

Iron, the staff members will know your face, and sometimes your name. Other iron ranks might know you, but nobody else will care: copper ranks are too disorderly and concerned about themselves, while everyone at steel or above treats you as just another adventurer.

Steel, the staff members will know you by name. If they didn’t before, they will make it a point to remember now. Pretty much every steel rank in the guild knows each other, and some of the iron and coppers might know you as well. Even mithril ranks will pay you some attention, since besides each other, you’re among the best fighters they know. Your character is mostly guaranteed as well, since at steel rank you can get demoted from only a few failed missions.

Mithril, it’s more unusual for someone not to know you. Even some people outside the guild, just average people in the city, may know you. Mithril ranks know about each other, and often they even know about the mithril rank parties in nearby cities as well.

So, yeah, reaching Steel is a pretty high milestone.

“I can’t believe it’s been a whole year since we got here…” Says Jakin, sipping contentedly at his beer.

“It has?” I say in surprise, then check my memory. “So it has. That’s something.”

Xiltroth smiles. “I, I just wanna say… thanks guys, for all you’ve done for me. You’re, great friends.” His voice is a little slurred, he never was able to hold much liquor.

“Don’t worry about it. Not like you haven’t saved us a few times either.” I say.

He nods, and starts to say something else, when a loud voice breaks through the ever-present noise in the guild.

“EVERYONE, SHUT IT!”

We look over. Normally, everyone would ignore it if someone said this, but today, it’s one of the staff. There is a nervous looking demon standing in front of him, practically drenched in sweat.

“Alright, go ahead. Tell them what you told me.” The staff member tells him.

Everyone in the room looks at him, some with curiosity, some with irritation, others not caring at all, but so many hardened warriors staring at him seems to make him nervous.

“Vaaslav city has been destroyed. We… we’ve confirmed that it was humans who did it…” He takes a deep breath. “The King has spoken… It’s war.”

While there was some murmuring before, the guild hall is now dead silent.