Chapter 2: Guild Trip

We arrived at the guild half an hour after it opened. This was a deliberate choice on my part as the place was far too crowded first thing in the morning. As we entered the building a guy in a full suit of rather grungy armor walked out, grumbling about goblins. Since Alisha had only ever come to the guild with her Chosen One as clients I decided to take the lead. I disliked how far she was trailing behind me, but I figured old habits were hard to break.

The Adventurer's Guild had branches in all the major cities of the kingdom and a few of the largest towns besides and pretty much all their buildings were laid out the same way, though of course the one in the capital was quite a bit larger in scope.

As you walked in there was a common area where people could chat and find parties to work together. Along the side walls of the common room were noticeboards with quests pinned to them, with each board labeled by the estimated level of difficulty of the quests found on it, ranging from D to A and a very small board with S-ranked quests, which were the really scary stuff you needed huge parties of seasoned adventurers for. Directly in sight from the entrance was the receptionists' desk and behind them and up the stairs off to one side were multiple small conference rooms in case a quest-giver wanted to speak directly to the adventurers willing to take on the quest or in case a newly formed party wanted to go over strategies in peace and quiet. Some quests, like those I came here for, were too specific to fit on a slip of paper so for these you had to talk to the receptionists directly instead of finding them on the noticeboards.

The guild receptionists were phenomenally helpful men and women who would show the ropes to newbies and help out seasoned adventurers to find the most fitting work for them. As you started to build your own reputation the receptionists got to know you and eventually knew what jobs to offer to you. All the receptionists here in the capital knew me very well, either personally or by reputation, so I avoided all the adventurers looking for quests and ignored the noticeboards to head straight to the receptionist's desk, where the cute head receptionist stood, a shockingly sweet but also terrifyingly competent woman in her early twenties. Even the frumpy clothes of her profession couldn't hide her gorgeous face and her shapely figure. Her hair was honey blond and loosely braided off to one side to rest on her shoulder, leaving the back of her neck bare. She saw me coming and smiled.

“Miss receptionist," I said, nodding to her.

“Mister Mercenary, so good to see you again. How did things go with your last..." she trailed off then looked at Alisha and asked her: “Miss Priestess, if you could just wait behind the yellow line on the floor until you're called? Privacy, I'm sure you understand."

I could feel Alisha backing off but I waved her over and told the receptionist: “No, it's fine. The lady elf is part of my party."

The receptionist's eyebrows rose. “You finally decided to take someone along?" She gave Alisha another glance. “And she's pretty, too." Then she looked back at me. “So, you're here for a job?"

I nodded. “We are. You wouldn't happen to have a Chosen One in need, would you?"

She smiled smugly. “I do indeed. I told her it might take you a few days to return from your last quest, but she's sitting in the conference room right now."

“She was fine with me?"

“She asked me who would be best to help with her quest, so I recommended you."

I smiled. “Thank you very much." I turned to the conference room.

Alisha trailed behind me and asked quietly: “Why are they so nice? What do they get out of this?"

“The guild takes a ten percent cut of every quest reward as a referral fee. In your case the cut was paid with the advance your Chosen One gave me. Which is why I was so annoyed when he only gave me 15% in advance as I had to hand most of that over to the guild. Remind me to never accept less than a quarter of the money up front again."

Her ears drooped. “Oh."

“Don't you dare feel bad for what he did," I told her, my voice a quiet hiss.

“I didn't do any better," she mumbled.

“You did in that throne room."

That gave her pause.

Just then we had reached the conference room and I opened the door, letting Alisha in first. The conference room had a large table in the center with half a dozen chairs around it. At the far end of the table sat our client.

Looking at her gear I felt a sneer coming on but I squashed it down, reminding myself that she had, in fact, decided to ask for help instead of running around all high and mighty. She wore metal armor polished to a mirror shine, with gold engravings over the chest and a royal blue cape draped over her back. Over the cape she had a scabbard with a sword that looked a bit too large to be a long sword and a bit too small to be a greatsword. I would have classified it as a greatsword scaled for a woman, though I've seen women wielding much more cumbersome weapons before. She also had a small buckler sitting against the table, a thin round metal affair with a shockingly crisp snowflake etching. Tied to her waist was a rack of potions and a bag of holding.

Then I took a look at the wearer of that gear. She had a beautiful rounded face, piercing blue-green eyes and full light pink lips that glistened in the light, looking so very kissable and inviting. Her hair was straight and blond and just barely touched her shoulders and she wore a crown of white gold filigree on her head. The faint shimmer around it told me it was enchanted and likely provided the same protection as a full helmet. Her skin was light, but still a bit more tan than Alisha's, speaking volumes of her upbringing on a farm, as did her body. Her armor may have covered enough to be modest but it was still shaped in such a way that it failed to hide some phenomenal curves you could only get from good food and good exercise.

“Chosen One," I said, nodding to her.

She looked both of us over and nodded back. “Mercenary. I heard good things about you. Who is your companion?"

“She is a priestess. We're a package deal." Alisha bowed to the Chosen One.

“Very good," the Chosen One said. “Please, take a seat."

We sat down off to the side.

“So, as I understand, you specialize in helping Chosen Ones reach and fight Dark Lords, is that correct?" she asked.

“Got it in one," I said.

She nodded. “Good, then I guess I can be brief with my explanations. The Goddess Freya chose me to slay a Dark Lord near my home town of Urd's Embrace, but I've never fought anything on that scale before. Only the occasional goblin or kobold, so I wanted to find companions to help me on my journey."

“A wise choice," I said. “Far better than to rush off on your own."

“How much will you cost me?" I considered.

“Three thousand mun." Her eyes went wide. That was a lot of money, especially for someone who had probably been a dirt poor peasant just days ago. I assured her: “You don't need to have the money right now. For now, I want an advance of seven hundred and fifty. Once we are done with your Dark Lord my partner and I get first pickings of his treasure chamber until we reach our price. After that we split the rest evenly."

She considered. “And if there's not enough in his treasure chamber to make up the difference?"

I shrugged. “Unlikely, but once you've beaten your Dark Lord people will probably shower you with riches with which you can then pay us. Trust me, we won't leave you high and dry. We're professionals."

She gulped, then rummaged in her bag of holding and placed seven hundred and fifty mun on the table. “When can we head out?" she asked. I took the money and placed half into my own bag and slid the rest over to Alisha, who looked shocked. I would spend most of my half on the referral fee but I wanted to make sure Alisha realized that I considered her an equal partner. Plus, she didn't have any other money while I did.

“Whenever you are ready, Chosen One," I told the blonde.

“Selene," she said.

“Beg your pardon?"

“My name is Selene," she explained. “This whole 'Chosen One' business is getting tedious."

I smiled at her. “Very well then. You may call me Felix."

I looked at Alisha. “And you can call me Alisha."

Selene nodded, then grabbed her buckler and rose. “Then let us go, Felix and Alisha."

**

After comparing maps, we decided on our route to the castle. Urd's Embrace was located quite a bit to the northwest of the capital, which meant getting to the guild must have been quite the trek for her.

The capital was the center of the known world, instantly recognizable thanks to the Crystal Crown, two mountain-sized crystal growths that twined around each other like a helix, with the royal family's palace built in the Crystal Crown's shadow and the capital built around the palace. Surrounding the capital were ten large cities, arranged in a very rough ring, with roughly two to three weeks of travel time from the capital to any of them on horseback and two weeks of travel time on horseback between the cities. Beyond the cities were the uncharted places. To the west was a giant ocean nobody had yet to cross. Or if they did, they had never returned. To the east was an enormous desert that had, to my knowledge, exhausted all efforts to cross it. In between the ocean and the desert to the south was a volcanic landscape that was utterly inhospitable, but the rich volcanic soil made the cities to the south extremely rich through agriculture. There was a bit of traffic with the kingdom beyond the volcanic region but it was few and far between, mostly by boat, avoiding the volcanoes entirely. But these people prayed to strange gods and did not care for our customs, so usually only the merchants bothered to deal with them. To the north was a giant mountain range that the dragons called home. Even the madmen who were willing to scale such mountains would have been repelled by the territorial beasts. We knew there was a kingdom beyond but traveling between here and there was so hazardous that few bothered.

Selene's home town was halfway between the capital and the northwestern city, Thunder's Forge, which was located right next to the ocean. The Dark Lord's castle was roughly two thirds of the way from the capital to her home town, putting us at seven to eight days on foot, depending on how much resistance we encountered on the way.

**

On that first day we hopped onto one of the traveling caravans to the nearest node in the travel grid, which would shave a day off our journey.

The day's travel was entirely uneventful. Not particularly surprising since the royal guard kept the area around the capital free of bandits and all but the weakest monsters, making it an excellent area for new adventurers to hone their skills but it also meant that even the most lightly seasoned adventurer was unlikely to encounter anything dangerous. Well, except for the phoenixes that roamed the skies everywhere, but anyone who tried to attack a phoenix deserved whatever happened to them. That is, a swift and painful death from the phoenix and if they avoided that then a swift and brutal execution for messing with the peaceful, magnificent creatures.

When we stepped off the caravan we found ourselves in a small village built around a large intersection. It had a huge marketplace owing to all the travelers and merchants that came through on their way to and from the capital but was a bit too busy to be a pleasant place to stay, at least in my opinion.

Nevertheless, it had already gotten dark out so we found ourselves an inn for a meal and a bed for the night. They gave us the house special, wolpertinger braised in a red wine sauce with shallots and mushrooms. Excellent food. I'd never actually had wolpertinger before and it was weird, but not bad. A mild meat, like chicken or rabbit, but every piece of it, even the breast, was fatty dark meat that braised wonderfully.

As it is wont to do among adventurers, dinner conversation turned to skills and abilities.

“So, Mister Mercenary," Selene asked, “what class are you exactly?"

I shrugged. “I'm whatever the situation asks for. Mostly I'm a guy with a bag of holding stuffed with weapons and lower tier magic items. I guess you could call me a rogue if you really wanted to pin me down."

“Why only lower tier gear? You must be able to afford better gear with your work."

“True," I said. “But the mid tier items aren't enough of an improvement in quality to justify the increase in price and legendary tier weapons are usually enchanted by some god or other. Those either refuse to work for me or are severely diminished because the gods really don't like me."

She frowned. “What about high tier gear?"

“See, high tier gear is ironically rarer than legendary tier since the gods keep throwing legendary gear at Chosen Ones who then sell their gear once they're done adventuring. I do have a few high tier items and some of them are quite potent but it is really hard to get your hands on them. Your turn. You are a Chosen One. What can your sword do and what divine miracles were you given?"

She hesitated before replying. “I guess you have some need to know this. The sword is very basic. The weight is artificially reduced. Not enough to reduce its impact but enough to make it handle better. It's also enchanted for durability and sharpness and it has an ice enchantment that makes it more dangerous against fire-elemental enemies, or so I'm told. The blade doesn't feel any colder than it should. As for miracles, I was given three, each usable once a day. The first is an ice storm by the Goddess Freya, the second is a lightning miracle granted by the God Thor and the third is the God Heimdallr's miracle of the Gjallarhorn."

Alisha cocked her head to the side. “Gjallarhorn?" she asked.

“You don't worship the Aesir?" Selene asked.

“No."

“Sorry, my mistake," the Chosen One said. “Anyway, the Gjallarhorn is a war horn loud and booming enough to break castle walls. I've not used any of these miracles so I don't know how exactly it manifests, but I'm assuming it will be a very strong very loud shockwave."

Alisha stroked her chin with two fingers and asked: “Sort of like Ares' battering ram then?"

I chimed in: “Sounds like it might have far more applications. We should try them all on the way so we know what everything does before we reach your Dark Lord."

“Agreed," Selene replied.

**

The best part of traveling with a Chosen One was the charity they were given. Everybody loved Chosen Ones for protecting them from Dark Lords, so any caravan, any tavern and any inn would simply give them and their party anything they required. One look at Selene's Destined Hero attire and innkeepers magically stopped asking for money and simply provided us with the best food the tavern had to offer and the best beds in the inn.

Of course, traveling with a Chosen One also came with the downside that everyone wanted to bask in the Chosen One's glory a little. For us that meant that after dinner people kept fawning over Selene for an hour before we were finally allowed to go and rest. And they gave us separate rooms, which sadly precluded Alisha and me from exploring whatever it was we'd started that morning. Though I am not too proud to admit I dreamed of her sneaking into my room that night.