Chapter 02

The last few days with my family had flown by in the blink of an eye. We ate, we watched some of the last leaves fall from autumn foliage, Winni and I battled the fearsome scarecrow right outside the house, and I’d been given some new clothing from mom.

The tunic I’d had was meagerly pinned together, damaged from one of my earlier dungeon runs. When mom saw it, she was visibly upset. The next day, she gave me a brand new tunic, double layered, in an earthy tree bark tone. The day after, she’d sewn together double layered pants. Said she wanted to, “match that tufted leather vest you’ve got. How lovely it is, and the fur, my Tosin, it’s so soft!”

Winni had been a bit jealous of all the attention I was getting, so helping her take out that frustration on the scarecrow dad had made from years back, was just what she needed.

“I could be an adventurer too, you know,” she’d said, wielding her sword-stick in the spirit of a true attack. I encouraged her, and together we took down the scarecrow and her invisible foes.

Meemee had come over to cheer Winni on, and to thank me with all her heart for the healing. She had for us, a dish covered with a small towel.

“They’re just muffins,” she’d said, “but it’s what I can do. I promise to repay you for the kindness some day.”

I’d tried so hard to convince her that it wasn't a problem at all, but she would hear none of that. All I could do was accept the muffins, and hope she trusted me that the baked items were more than enough.

Then I’d been off to Klayvale.

The carriage tumbled beneath me as the driver, two horses, and I traveled on. The road wound on the side of a hill and we overlooked the last of autumn in the valley below. Mountains cut across the sky in the distant fog. The sun was a bleary orange as it rose on an overcast day.

I gave a heavy sigh. I was glad Meemee was alright, but that’s only because I had coincidentally just arrived in town.

I thought of my dad who’d been in the same position years ago. I wish every town had some sort of healing source or something.

“Heads up,” the carriage driver called.

I braced against the coming bump in the road. The carriage tipped into it and violently bounced out of it. The road hadn’t been too bad so far, but with the rains lately, erosion had highlighted the holes already there.

So what about other afflictions? What if Meemee had been poisoned, or suffering from elemental damage or something?

My party members, a few dungeons back, had suffered from a mysterious purple mark. To this day, I still have not identified it. We’d also been afflicted by a snowflake symbol which was probably cold damage right? Who am I kidding—I can’t just take a wild guess with these things. As a healer, I had to look out for people’s lives. Guessing could be dangerous.

The sun was obscured by dark clouds by the time midday came around. It was somewhere overhead and we descended into the valley. A low arching stone bridge led us to the first few buildings on the outskirts of Klayvale.

I was dropped off no further than the Main Street that wound up into the city.

“Straight up,” my driver said, pointing with a reign-smoothed hand towards the city center. “You can’t miss it. Big ol’ sign. Reads: Klayvale Trading Post.”

I paid the kind driver his couple silvers and headed up the main road. The carriage wheels ground against the stone behind me, led by clomping horse hooves.

The trading post was indeed hard to miss, not only from the large wooden sign that swung in a high breeze, but also from the sheer size of the building. It was at least twice as big as any of the Magic & Lance Beginner’s Guild buildings.

Klayvale was a town of wood and mud. The roads were paved with packed dirt. Buildings were made from stacked logs and grey-green mortar. All the buildings were basically log houses. Warm orange and bronzed lights glowed invitingly from the dozens of windows cut into the Klayvale trading post.

For a moment I stood there and marveled at the building. I set my flagstaff into the holster on my back. With pressure, it popped into the clamp which secured it. Zekaidean’s Anvil, a one meter by half meter flag, tugged in a breeze. I could feel Five of Gryf, the silver ribbon, trail alongside the flag as well.

A man ambled out of the trading post. An open door of sound and of light and of chaos led him out into the midday chill. He staggered, hiccuped, and paused to regard me.

“Look like this yer first time seein Klayvale,” the fellow said.

He turned to regard the massive building and stumbled to my side. His eyes climbed all four floors of architecture before letting out a low whistle.

The doors opened once more to let out another explosion of sound. A party of adventurers came charging out, sharing a jovial song together. The fellow beside me then walked off saying, “Even blind, you couldn’t miss it, could ye?”

With a heave of a pull on the heavyset door, it opened. If the trading post had been silent, I would have cringed at the screaming squeal of the door’s hinges. Compared to the racket within, it was nothing.

Every matter of noise had been collected from the world of Felke and dumped like an overturned sand bucket into the trading post. There was song, fighting, fire, machinery, items shattering, shouting and screaming, and all matters of discord.

Merchants were set up in haphazard booths and tables everywhere. By the drag marks on the floor, the merchants had once been neatly lined up. The sheer number of adventures and activity eventually pushed things out of order. It didn’t seem that a single merchant had been able to do anything about it, except to sail across the wood floor as though lost at sea.

I made my way to the recruiter’s post and waited in line to give them my name. The man who helped me had a massive tome before him with everyone’s names and information.

“Alrighty Mr. Tosin. Class, and highest level proficiency please?”

“Healer. Level 12 flagstaff.”

He made impossibly quick swipes with quill and ink on a freshly turned page. He smiled at me and asked, “Anything of note? Cost to hire? Specific requests? Limitations of distance, etcetera?”

“Uh—No? No, I don’t think so?”

“You’ll be sent a whisper calling if we’ve got something for you. You’ll meet with your recruiter, and from there you can decide to quest forth or not, understand?”

I gave a quick nod, the man gave a slight bow, and I made to peruse the trading post. I didn’t make it more than a dozen meters when the trading post fell silent.

I was stopping with wide eyes, looking around me to find the source of the interruption. Not a single other person was stopping with me. They were all clamoring, cavorting about, bartering, leaning in for private conversations, and carrying an air of cheer and good fortune. Their mouths were moving but no sound fell past their lips.

Behind me, a sword was tested against a newly leveled shield. The blade was bouncing off and wobbling from the force of the blow. No sound was emitted from the clash. The shield was shuddering from the impact. The trading post was deafeningly silent to my ears only.

“Tosin Siege,” an ethereal voice whispered. “Healer. Adventurer Bron awaits you by the beacon.”

The whisper faded like a slipping dream. Sounds of the trading post came rushing back in a sloping volume. I thought I even heard the echo of the sword that had clashed against the shield. It could have been a hundred other sounds though.

Across the trading post, a beacon of silver light columned from floor to ceiling. I wove through the crowd. My flagstaff had brushed against a couple of adventurers who gave me a shove and threatened me.

I made peace, backed off, and continued on towards the beacon. The rest of my way, I picked my path carefully and worked on my self awareness.

The closer I got, the more the beacon of light dimmed. When I reached it, it disintegrated to nothing, leaving only a young man round my age before me.

“Tosin?” he said.

“Bron?”

He gave a hearty chuckle and a nod before offering his hand to shake. Based on his dark blue robe, I guessed he was a mage.

“Nice to meet you Tosin. I’m an air elementalist. You’re a healer, I take it?”

Bron and I got on quite well. We’d gotten a couple of baked potatoes with cheese curds to enjoy, and made our way outside to walk around and talk more freely. Bron led the conversation.

“Didn’t want to shout the whole time you know?”

“Yea,” I said, “You’ve gotta have a pair of lungs to exist in there.”

As we ate, Bron propositioned a duo quest. We would transport wool from a farm to a well respected textile mill and weaver. The journey would last a few days, and rumors had given Bron the expectation that we’d be likely to run into highwaymen. Our reward would be a single gold.

“Rumors of highwaymen?”

“Yeap. Some ruffians decided to ambush travelers along the road we’ll be traveling. The weaver has been distraught about it so she put a quest into the trading post. I thought it would be a nice way to see off the last of autumn, instead of being cooped up in a dungeon.”

“You sure the two of us will be enough?”

“Yeap, That’s what the quest details said. So what d'ya think? You down?”

“This will be my first quest actually. I’ve only gone dungeon diving so far.”

“Really?”

“Yea.”

“Well I totally recommend this as your first quest. We’ll stick together, kick some butt, and it’ll be cinch. What d’ya say? If we leave now, we’ll make it by evening. There’s a barn we can stay in for the night, then pack up and continue the quest in the morning.”

We shook on it and returned to the recruiter’s post to sign off on the quest. Bron received a copy that required the weaver’s signature or stamp upon quest completion, and he tucked it safely away.

Before we left I bought another baked potato with cheese curds, a few plain potatoes, and a leather water skin. Cost me 1 silver, 4 copper. Then we were off.

Since Bron grew up in Klayvale, I simply followed his lead without complaint. As he shared childhood stories of running aimlessly through these very streets, I delighted in my baked potato.

“—Then I decided to become an elementalist. My brother and I used to bird watch before he became an adventurer, and I took a liking to air elementalism. Level 6 Compact Bat. My favorite spell. Durability level 3, and size level 3. Can’t wait for you to see it. What about you? I know your flagstaff is level 12. What’s all that stuff on it? What’s the level breakdown?

“The flag and the ribbon are healing items. The rune near the top of the staff is Fist of Wind.”

“Yea—Fist of Wind, sure—That’s a good one. Nice.”

“The gold vein is a Life-steal enchantment. Whatever damage I deal with the flagstaff, all teammates receive a portion of that in healing.”

“Yea man, now that’s what I’m talking about! So What’s the level breakdown?”

I explained that I mostly did blind leveling on the flagstaff and flagstaff items. Blind leveling only affected durability. Since I didn’t know the runes for leveling things like size, weight, material, and whatever else, I had stuck with blind leveling.

“The flagstaff itself has a durability at level 3,” I said. “The Fist of Wind Rune has a level 2 durability, Life-steal is level 2, Five of Gryf—the silver ribbon—is level 2, the flag called Zekaidean’s Anvil is level 2, and the spearhead at the top is just level 1. So total level of 12. Level 12 flagstaff.”

“You’re just missing some leveling specific runes. I’ll teach you some. Do you have a runic stylo to make runes?”

“I do. Appreciate the help, man.”

“Alright, no problem. What do you want to level first? Probably healing power right? Mana cost maybe?”