Chapter 12 #2
Alsen pulled on his power. Indirect missile. A dot of power curved through the air, hitting a dummy. The dummy exploded into splinters.
“Calm the heck down!” the receptionist shouted. “Don’t blow up the place. Plus, aren’t you level five?”
Right. He might have overdone it. The System gave the first attack spell only at level ten. He shrugged.
Meanwhile, Luna threw the dagger. It sliced the air and stabbed the other dummy. “There,” she said. “That should be enough.”
“Yes, I got that. Fine. You both passed. Just don’t destroy any more guild property, all right? We’re really strapped for gold. Everyone is.”
Alsen caught a faint blush. “Sorry.”
The receptionist headed out. “I’m Maggie, by the way. I’ll write you up as two fresh F-ranks. There’s an adventurer’s guild manual that we used to give for free, but it costs a coin now. You can buy it at the reception.” She left the room, leaving the door open.
Alsen glanced at Luna. “What’s Nurnfell?”
Luna looked around. They were left alone in the room, probably to clean up.
She walked to the dummy and pulled the dagger out of it.
“A city. For my second campaign, I joined a mercenary army. I ended up in a unit named the Nurnfell Reapers. The years I spent with them were the best time of my life.” Her voice dropped lower, dripping pain and nostalgia.
“But nothing lasts forever. Now, there’s only one Nurnfell Reaper left.
” She slid the dagger behind her belt, heading back to the main room.
Years. That word interested him the most. She went through a war campaign, joined mercenaries, and spent years with them. He wanted to figure out her age, and somehow, it felt wrong to ask.
He joined her in the main lobby, except that a man already awaited him by the test room’s exit. He seemed to be in his mid-twenties, with a nicely trimmed beard, wearing a semi-worn scale armor, a sword at his hip, a shield hanging over his back.
The armor had marks of combat, which surely wouldn’t have been difficult to fix if he cared. The scar crossing his eyebrow also looked a little too good to be natural, and he had this kind of charming, roguish smile that Alsen couldn’t see through at all.
Then again, maybe there wasn’t anything to see through. “Hey, heard the test was eventful.”
And he completely ignored Luna. Alsen shrugged. “Well, we’ve passed.”
“I’m Garrett. My group’s over there.” He motioned with his hand toward a table with three other adventurers seated on surrounding stools.
They were all acting as if they weren’t watching them.
“We’re all E-ranks, but mostly fresh. Nobody stays an F-rank for long.
We’ve got a really nice quest to go on, and we’ve been looking for a talented mage to join us.
The test sounded like you’re also powerful on top of being talented. ”
Well, they’d found just the right one then. A broad smile spread across Alsen’s face.
Luna cleared her throat behind Garrett. From what Alsen knew, this sounded almost threatening.
“Your civilian friend can join too,” he quickly added. “If she can handle an E-rank quest.”
“Sure,” Alsen said. “Let’s hear it.”
Garrett led them to his table, confident in his stride, used to being followed.
Alsen did. Luna trailed behind, silent, which was already unusual.
Three adventurers sat around the table, drinks in hand, doing an impressively bad job of pretending they hadn’t been watching him and Garrett every step of the way.
They looked up when they got close.
“This is Theron,” Garrett said, gesturing at the largest man Alsen had ever seen.
Not fat. Just enormous. Theron had arms thicker than Alsen’s thighs, a shaved head, and a gentle smile that looked comically misplaced on a body clearly built for hitting things until they stopped moving.
He wore a battered breastplate over simple clothes, and a two-handed axe leaned against the table beside him. “He breaks things.”
“It’s a pleasure,” Theron said. His voice was warm and oddly melodic for a man his size.
“Sonja.” Garrett pointed at a woman sitting across from Theron.
She had auburn hair tied in a loose braid, freckles scattered across sun-darkened skin, and the lean build made for a life spent outdoors, her back and arms those of an archer.
A longbow and quiver hung from the back of her chair, with a spear braced against the wall.
Her eyes were already on Luna. “She shoots things.”
“Hey,” Sonja said, still looking at Luna. “Who’s that cute little kitten over there?”
Garrett ignored her. “And that’s Marena.
” The last member sat slightly apart from the others, a young woman with dark hair and nervous hands wrapped around a cup of something steaming.
She wore layered robes with symbols stitched into the hems, and a wooden staff leaned against the wall behind her.
“She heals us after things don’t go as planned.
That practically never happens, but you know, just in case. ”
Theron and Sonja snorted.
Marena offered a shy wave.
Alsen pulled out a stool. “I’m Alsen. A mage. And this is Luna. She’s—”
“Hi.” Luna sat down next to him, arms crossed.
A brief, awkward pause followed. Garrett’s group exchanged glances.
Luna stopped him for a reason, Alsen realized.
To Garrett and his group, he was a mage who just made a mess in the test hall.
But she was a girl with no visible weapons, no armor, no gear beyond a backpack and some jewelry in her hair.
A civilian. Someone he dragged along for personal reasons, not for being useful.
She probably liked being seen as such. Nobody else commented on it either, so everyone was on the same page.
“Right,” Garrett said, sitting down and leaning forward.
“So here’s what we’ve got.” He pulled a folded, hand-drawn map from inside his armor and spread it on the table.
Sonja and Theron weighed down the corners with mugs.
“About four days northeast of here, past the ridge, there’s an old vault built into a mountainside.
We found it a few weeks ago after we accidentally caused a landslide. ”
Alsen leaned forward, studying the map. It was rough but functional, showing terrain, landmarks, and a marked entrance at the base of what looked like a cliff face. “What kind of vault?”
“Pre-dragon, for sure. The architecture’s old. We got through the entrance and into the first couple of chambers. Standard stuff at first, some traps, some critters. But the lower sections have magical barriers we can’t get past, and constructs that shrug off steel.”
“Void-animated?” Alsen asked.
Garrett blinked. “I don’t know what that means. Stone things that move and try to kill you.”
“Most likely those.” Alsen nodded. “We met a couple of them earlier.”
“Interesting.” Garrett’s smile turned knowing.
“We’ve been waiting for weeks for a mage to show up.
The guild’s dried up, as has the gold in the region.
Most casters either left for bigger cities or got snapped up by the dragon’s people for private commission work.
You’re the first one to walk through that door in a month. ”
Theron raised his mug. “We were starting to lose hope.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Sonja said, though she still hadn’t looked at Garrett or Alsen. She was watching Luna with an expression Alsen couldn’t quite place. It reminded him of a card collector watching a foil version of the best card from a new set. “Is your hair naturally that color?”
Luna blinked. “What?”
“Your hair. It’s really pretty. The crystals too. Did you braid those in yourself?”
Luna rolled her eyes, turning towards Maggie. “We could use a couple of beers here please.”
“I’ll pay for them,” Sonja added. “And add three shots too.”
Garrett cleared his throat. “Anyway, the constructs. There were four larger statues between us and whatever’s deeper in.
We can fight them, but it’s not very efficient without magic.
We get stuck in a stalemate where nothing dies, and we wear ourselves down.
We need someone who can actually destroy the damn things. ”
Alsen smiled. “There’s nothing I can’t destroy.”
“How many big spells can you cast before you run out of gas?”
That was a sharp question. Alsen liked it. Garrett had experience, expecting there to be a catch. “At least three, but it shouldn’t be a problem. Statues can’t heal themselves, so we can go in, blast a couple, retreat outside, wait a few hours, and repeat the process until no statues remain.”
Garrett laughed, patting him firmly on the shoulder. “Yeah, we’ve found ourselves a mage. Cheers to that!” He raised his mug. Theron, Sonja, and Marena all raised their mugs.
They all took a sip.
“For the loot,” Garrett said after he put down the mug. “There are six of us, so we should do an even, six-way split.”
Luna leaned forward. “How much loot are we expecting?”
Garrett turned to her. The courtesy in his expression was genuine, but so was the way his eyes briefly scanned her, found nothing dangerous, and moved on.
“Hard to say. Pre-dragon vaults usually have quite a few valuables. Gold, weapons, gems, sometimes enchanted gear, maybe even runes. The deeper the vault, the better the loot.”
“In theory,” Theron added. “There’s no good way to tell a vault apart from a sealed prison from the outside. There’s either a ton of treasure inside, or none.”
Garrett and Marena gave him the shut-up look. This was a topic for after a few beers, not for when Maggie was only carrying the beers for Alsen and Luna.
Luna tilted her head, eyes narrowed.
Alsen pondered the theory. The place didn’t have an easy access path, but it could have been a high security prison or a prison no one was supposed to come out of to begin with.
Maggie arrived, dropping the two beers for Alsen and Luna. “Who’re the shots for?” she asked.