*Four days ago, in the Yhester adventuring guild*

“Targal, what’s the matter? There’s no need to get all uppity about this. I’m sure it will turn up,” Samson was saying backing slowly away from the irate guild leader. I had advanced quickly on my assistant, asking about the missing contract.

“The problem is, my dear Samson, is that I just watched someone walk out of this door with a contract in hand, alone.” Well, he wasn’t really alone, but I wasn’t firm on the particulars of summoning magic. “Unless you want to be personally held responsible for the unnecessary endangerment of a potential recruit, an untested recruit I might add, I suggest you hurry back to your office and make sure it isn’t there. Then you are coming with me to look for this boy so we can hopefully save him.” Samson’s back hit the wall, and I loomed over him, he looked about to run for his life, and despite that, he started speaking in a shaky voice.

“But, guild master, surely we could send someone else.”

“NOW!” I barked, and Samson shut his mouth and made his way out of the bar and into the neighboring building where he worked. We were short on people as it was, anyone who was sent out would have to be paid, setting all that up would take to long. As I calmed down, I realized that the room had gone quiet and everyone was staring at me, when they noticed me looking at them they quickly turned away to go back to whatever they were doing before my outburst.

I might have overreacted a bit, but these sorts of mistakes were what got people killed, and I had worked hard for the current attitude of the guild. No one should die because of stupid mistakes or a lack of preparation from the guild, some people were still to pigheaded to listen to advice, but I couldn’t save everyone, people needed to be allowed to make their own mistakes too. I shook myself out of my foul mood and went behind the bar to bring out a large chest that was stashed behind it. Placing my hand on the lid made the runes glowing around it dim, and the lock snapped open with a click.

Inside rested my old sword I had used as an adventurer, I had not had much cause to use it lately, but as I brought it out of its sheath, it looked as well maintained as the day I had stored it away. It was a hand and a half sword, and as I funneled some mana through it, the enchantments burst to life. Glowing runes in different colors were now visible up the length of the blade, and I could feel the handle vibrate as if the sword was eager to be used.

“Hello, old friend looks like we get one more adventure before I put you on the shelf for good." Looking at this sword brought back a lot of memories, but mostly I remembered the day I decided to retire, that might have been the worst day of my life. "Or perhaps I should gift you to someone who could put you to better use,” the people's attention had suddenly spiked at this, and I glared at them before I said. “In your dreams, it would have to be someone worthy, and I don’t see anyone of you volunteering to go save this lad with me,” I looked around the room to see if I was wrong, but as I thought they only grumbled and went back to drinking, “as I thought.” All the adventurers who were worth a damn were either out delving or wouldn’t come here in the middle of the day. There might not even be a need for this, maybe Samson would find the missing contract, and I wouldn’t have to come out of retirement, but as if to ruin my good mood he burst through the door and breathless he said.

“I looked everywhere I could think of unless someone has taken it. I can’t imagine where it is.”

“Looks like you are coming with me then since you are most familiar with this contract I want you to guide me to where the goblins are supposed to be. You better get some armor on before we leave, and hurry up, we have already wasted enough time.” The assistant scrambled out the door again, and I went to get my own armor equipped.

Finding the little camp hadn’t been hard, we had left our horses bt the road and traveled through the woods by foot since it was too thick and the ground too uneven for the horses. I had on my enchanted leather armor with chainmail reinforcing the gaps for extra protection, it was a bit tight, seems I had put on some weight as of late, but I could manage. Samson, on the other hand, was struggling immensely, seems he hadn’t really ridden a horse before and he bounced up and down in the saddle all the way. He seemed relieved to be on foot, but he would likely be cramping in the morning.

I had packed some healing potions in case of emergency, I wasn’t really worried about needing them myself. The boy might need them though if something had gone wrong, or Samson might need them now that I thought about it. 'He seems utterly incompetent' I thought as he stumbled over a root for what felt like the hundredth time, bringing him seemed more and more like a mistake as every potential monster in the area now probably knew we were here.

I found the tracks of what must be a good sized raiding party of goblins and a colossal snake trail that must belong to the boy’s summoned spirit. I was more and more uncertain it actually was a spirit, that boy couldn't keep her summoned this long no matter how strong he was. Spirits needed to go back to wherever they came from I was pretty sure, to recuperate their energy. The sun had set by the time we made it to the goblin’s camp, despite the poor light, the bodies of the fallen goblins were clear enough.

“Well, looks like this fellow handled himself fairly well. We probably won’t need to worry about him if this is his work,” Samson said as I inspected the bodies. They looked fresh, their bodies still warm, but no sign of any snake lady except for her track in the dirt. It seemed to have been a fairly one-sided battle, and I couldn’t help but be impressed. As I moved to the edge of the camp, I found two goblins with bows laying nearby. There were signs of blunt force here, with one having a broken arm and the back of the head of the other one being caved in. If I remembered correctly the snake lady carried a spear, the mage must have used something like a magic missile to take these two out of the fight. Casting spells and keeping control of your summon was very difficult according to my friend, now that I thought about it she had only cast spells when not having an active summon. The spirit itself did any spellcasting when she was controlling it, the chances of this boy being a summoner seemed more and slimmer by the moment unless the snake lady could cast spells of course.

If he wasn’t a summoner what would that mean? A sentient race that had somehow gone undiscovered for however long, or perhaps it was new to the world, some god or goddess might have created them. I knew from first-hand experience that there were things in this world that no mortal had ever laid eyes upon, corners of the world as yet undiscovered. The politics and machinations of the gods were legendary in an of themselves, who knew the mind of a god. What I saw next brought my thoughts to a halt, I needed to confirm my suspicion and brought out one of the torches from my pack and lit it with a flint and steel.

The path of broken and cracked trees was now clear as the fire shed light around me, what lay on the ground before me also became clear. Huge footprints in the dirt as long as one of my legs led from the path of destroyed trees and into the little camp only to veer into the woods again and disappear from sight. I followed them for a bit, but as I suspected, they ended at one of the trees. It was as if the big creature had taken flight, the trail just ended, Samson bumped into my back he was clearly scared and in a shaky voice, he asked.

“W-what could have left these prints, and where did it go?”

“A troll, you know about their strange magic right?” Samson nodded at my question, and I continued. “They call it dream magic, they can somehow use it to travel through the trees, they can travel what should take a week in only three days in a forest, making a troll mage extremely hard to trap.” Samson looked very confused by my words before he said.

“But trolls never travel this far south not even in winter, and yet nothing else could have left these prints here.”

“You are right, a troll would never be down here of its own accord. The only thing that could make a troll break tradition, as far as I know, is a dungeon,” Samson grew pale at my proclamation, but he pulled himself together admirably.

“You think this troll has taken the boy to this dungeon then?”

“Yes, we can only hope he was taken alive,” I looked at Samson then, trying to think. If a dungeon had managed to get the cooperation of a troll, voluntarily or not, there was no telling how powerful it was. “You need to get back to the guild, send a message to the main headquarters in the capital. Tell them we need a dungeon evaluation team to come down here and inform them that there might be trolls involved.” Samson nodded vigorously at this, understanding the gravity of the situation. We both tracked our way through the darkness, torch held high for light, to our horses where we rode in opposite directions. Samson back to the guild to send the message and me to the northern mountain range to look for signs of dungeons. It was the most likely place for a dungeon to appear and it was where trolls lived, the locals might have noticed something. I thought about the boy and his snake lady then, hopefully, he was alive and had found a way to escape. I didn’t know why a dungeon needed to kidnap people, well I could imagine a few different reasons and none of them inspired much hope for the boy's survival. I rode as hard and as long into the night as my horse could manage before I made camp for the night by the side of the road. I woke up early the next morning to eat a quick breakfast before I packed up the camp and continued on my journey. I pushed my horse to her limits and myself with little time for sleep and to eat, the only thing that lightened my mood was the fact that it wasn’t raining.