Chapter 16: Ch 15 “Many Name Guild”

 

Adventures, Exterminators, Butchers, Killers, and Mercenaries are all accurate names used by the common folk to describe people who work as professional monster killers who in their long history is known for attracting both the best and worst of the people for their ranks.

But people are quick to remember all the good caused by their guild and are quick to blame but the guild is not without faults and there are many voices in and outside the guild advocating for reforms in the trully ancient institution who seen best and the worst days of the humanity.

                                                                   -Exert from a diary of 73th Grand Master of Adventures Guild Albert Lionheart "the Last Exterminator"

 

 

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The street on which the old man had left them was broad enough to allow carts to pass each other between the tall beige buildings. The street was packed with humans walking in their own different directions, making the girls feel like fish in a barrel. The sounds of merchants haggling and feet hitting the pave stone mixed with other sounds creating a continuous cacophony assaulting Iris's ears.

 

"Come we have to buy a few stuff." Iris bend to Kia and offered her a hand.

 

She accepted the elf's offer, her eyes curiously devoured the unfamiliar sights, being fascinated by the smallest thing.

Iris walked through the crowded streets to where she thought she could buy the few things she noticed they lacked. Although she had never been to Marinya, humans tended to build their cities in similar layouts no matter the location. She also noticed few people paid attention to the two but some humans managed to glimpse under Kia's hood, they usually stop to say words like "Oh, my." or "Aspects." only to be pushed along in the tide of oblivious humans. Iris felt that they do not deserve to be able to see the mere glimpse of Kia but she bottled that feeling deep down in her soul and focused on navigating the streets of the maritime city.

  They enter a shop of the same colour of beige as the rest of the buildings with a sign "Baddy's General Shop" hanging in front of it.

The inside appeared to be cramped with only a counter and miscellaneous items behind the counter.

 

"Hello?"

 

"WAIT A SECOND!" A shout came from somewhere above them.

 

The girls look at each other and then at the ceiling.

 

"I am very sorry for the delay. Now how can I help you?" A slightly old human woman came from a door in the corner of the shop and bowed slightly before going behind the counter.

 

"Do you have outdoors equipment?"

 

"Of course, follow me." The woman open the same door from which she came and gesture them to enter.

 

  The girls climbed a staircase when they reached the top sight of shelves upon shelves of clothes and fabrics of every type or colour.

 

"The outdoors equipment is upstairs."

 

  They climbed the next set of stairs, the floor which was similar to the one below them was filled with stuff lined from where they stood to the window on the opposite side of the house. There was everything from backpacks to field kitchens lined in front of them.

Iris began to take what she felt they needed, two large brown backpacks and two brown sleeping bags were picked by the elf before she felt a small tug on her cuff.

 

"Iris, why are we getting these things?" Kia whispered as the pair was passing an entire shelve with fire-starting equipment.

 

"Because we have to pass as being alive and it will not help us if someone stopped us and saw that we somehow survived on the track without basic tools without looking worse for wear." Elf explained remembering when Alicia blasted a traveller out of nowhere, shocking their group. Only for the traveller's scorched remains to turn into silvery dust and then explained that the vampire posed no equipment to back his story about travelling from Catalina to Havenfall.

 

"Oh." A sound of realization came from the cloaked girl.

 

  Iris took some more stuff including a steel pot and two steel mugs for "cooking" and proceeded to head back to the shopkeeper who watched the two from beside the staircase.

 

"Satisfied with your choices, ladies?"

 

"Yes."

 

They walk back to the ground floor, girls noticed a similarly old man behind the counter shortly joined by the woman who led and escorted them.

 

"Those things will be 2 gold coins and 18 silver."

 

"Can I pay in silver?" Elf asked.

 

"Yes, that would be no problem."

 

  The elf started to pull out silver coins from a pouch on her belt but before she could pull out the 66 coins a hand stopped her.

 

"Miss Elf, do you know what year is it?" The old man came over and asked examining one of the silver coins.

 

"No."

 

"It's the year 1438 in the human calendar, those coins are over 100 years old, you know?" He showed the date showing on the reverse of the coin. 

 

"Can I still pay for those?" She asked trying to hide her shock.

 

"It's still silver but let us check something." The man said and motioned to the woman who pulled a scale from under the counter. "We can go to towns scale if you worry about ours."

 

"No need for that." Elf said.

 

  The man put his silver coin on the scale causing the scale's arms to move, he then put the old silver coins causing the scale's arms to move again. During the entire process, Iris noticed Kia was staring at the weighing scales as if the most amazing thing happen in front of her.

 

"I tell you what, you only have to pay 33 silver coins but I only count the weight of these, not any artistic value. Deal?" The shopkeeper said.

 

"Deal," Iris said. "I saw you did not have any maps do you know where we could see one?

 

The man looked at the woman who answered. "I think you could get a map in Exterminator's place..."

 

  The girls walk out of the shop with their new belongings placed in their backpacks. They walk further from the centre of the town towards the port side of the town following the directions given to them, finding them selfs in front of an ordinary-looking building overlooking the port. The building was constructed from wood with a triangular roof with slate roof tiles but in the port, it stuck as a sore thumb in between the massive warehouses and fish markets surrounding it.

Upon entering the building they see a neatly divided floor into what looks like a restaurant with people talking with each other in front of a plate with food and into a mostly empty section excluding a counter staff by a woman in a uniform behind it talking to someone and a massive board half-filled with papers stuck into it. 

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Iris pulled off her hood and waited until the receptionist finished speaking to the person in front of them after which Iris walked closer to the counter followed by Kia who kept her hood.

 

"Welcome to the Adventurers guild, how can I help a fellow elf?" The receptionist said.

 

"Hi, did not expect an elf here. Do you have a map we can get?"

 

"If you join our guild, yes. It comes with many bonuses and rights. Like training facilities, room to rest, reparation for bodily harm depending on your rank and identification cards for its members." The chestnut-short-haired elf said without breaking eye contact.

 

  Iris was about to leave and decline the receptionist's offer until she said her last word. They lack any identification cards and not all guards will be so reckless as to not check for them.

 

"What do we need to do to join?"

 

 

"You just need to show me your status sheet, only the class, attributes and names could be shown. Then you can choose what to do with yourself but there is a minimum amount of monsters to be slain required by the guild to remain as an adventurer.

 

Iris produced her status sheet which manifested as a translucent white rectangle similar to a clay tablet with the told requirements.

 

The receptionist wrote her stats down on a paper in front of her and asked. "Name Iris... Strength 65... Constitution 61... Class Hoplite...Could I ask you what is your level, your attributes are super high I mean high around a guy whose level is 60 but you only listed one class?" 

 

"I-I just trained a lot I guess."

 

"My, for how long did your parents not allow you to leave? You surely must be older than me? Sorry, I got a bit excited, my name is Mira, now you, young lady or are you even older than her?" Elf behind the counter jested as Iris's white sheet started to disappear slowly.

 

  But before Iris could try to make an excuse for Kia. Her hands manifested a rectangle of swirling black smoke on which blue and golden letters slowly formed. She handed her status sheet to the receptionist.

 

"Wow, I work here for an almost quarter of a century and I never saw that type of sheet being manifested. How did you do it?" Asked Mira causing Iris to panic about Kia's answer and even more about what she had put onto the black tablet.

 

"B-O-R-E-D" The cloaked girl whispered her answer slowly articulating each letter.

 

"I guess, but you should be more proud of your talent, I mean it," Mira said and then started to write what was on Kia's tablet.

 

"Siri what a nice name, you are a wizard specialized in the darkness that is a nice class to have for killing monsters and also you have balanced attributes a bit weak on the constitution but still very nice and balanced sheet," Mira said after a while causing the Iris to sigh mentally but also puzzled how she came up with her sheet. "You will have to wait about half a day to a day to receive your badges and cards so would you like to rent a room, the first day is half price. Only 5 silver and 4 copper."

 

"Sure, and could you also help us with something?"

 

"Anything," Mira said.

 

"Is there a problem exchanging these?" She showed Mira half of the silver coins which the girl posed including from Kia's inventory which Kia "pulled" from her backpack.

 

"Oh, so you are at least a hundred years old. That will be no problem just give me a minute going to bring Mark over." She said and opened the door behind her disappearing inside. "This is Mark our antiquarian if you find anything old that's him you go to." She introduced an old human with a neatly trimmed grey beard.

 

"Mm, these are from Theocracy, oh and some from here... 100 years, 111... I can give you 3 silvers per coin you have in your collection." He said.

 

Iris accepted his offer and paid for their room getting 20 copper coins in change. They were led to their room which was a room with a table with a pair of chairs beside it, two beds on opposite sides of the room and a small window illuminating the room in orange light. "Thank you." She told Mira nodded and went back down. 

As the girls sat on one the edge of the bed Iris asked Kia who was resting her head on the elf's shoulder a question.

 

"How did you manage to change your tablet's contents?"

 

"I was once bored and messing around with my sheet, trying to change its colour I accidentally managed to edit my sheet by manually manipulating mana as it was forming a new sheet." She said with a small smug on her face appearing. "I took the numbers from the person's sheet in front of us and mix them around and filled the rest myself to create a "normal" looking stats for the woman." 

 

"That guy had his sheet out? I did not notice." 

 

As the girls talked primarily about what Kia found fascinating or confusing, like why do they need to give coins to others for not coins and as the elf tried her best to answer Kia's questions the day had ended and the faint silvery light of the moon entered their room.

 

Kia yawned and her soft hands enveloped Iris's arm.

 

"Hey~" Elf jerked her shoulder.

 

"Mmm?" A sleepy Kia answered.

 

"We have beds you know?"

 

"No, I don't want to be so far." She pointed at the bed on the opposite side of the room.

 

"We can join them and create one big one."

 

 Kia lifted her head reluctantly from the elf and watched as Iris drags the other bed across the floor. They lay on the now joined bed, Iris who layed on her side was assaulted from the back by the cool and soft touch of Kia's hands wrapping themselves around her but instead of feeling colder from the girl's touch, Iris's body felt hotter.

 

"Wmhmat? Eeeh!" Kia's sleepy reply turned into a yelp as she saw the elf's almost naked figure only covered by her black underwear.

 

"It's just warm, move back," Iris said and then gesturing Kia to move from her spot. 

 

"O-okay."

 

  As Iris lay on her blanket, slowly cooling off her body. Kia, who retread to her side of the bed was sleeping restlessly. Iris felt her body heat up again as the sleeping girl hugged her, enveloping the elf's ample chest with her delicate hand.

Her silky dress brushed against Iris's back as her stomach rose and fell causing Iris to pant heavily with lust for more of Kia's soft touch.

Elf's body glistened in the weak moonlight.