Ember of Invention

It wasn’t like Lindle didn’t like talking about alchemy, but compared to the Shadow Lantern, he felt like his demonstration was shaping up to be much more lackluster than his friends. The guild worker and he were sitting cross-legged across from each other, a line of potions between them on the ground as Lindle described each of their functions one by one. He wasn’t showing off every single one he had, that would take too long and the worker didn’t need the basics such as healing, aura, or mana potions, but he covered enough of them to show he had coverage for a variety of situations.

“And this is a toxin that’s usually used as a purging agent, it causes gagging even if the monster is hardy enough to resist vomiting.” Lindle held out the potion he used on his milestone rite months ago. “In my experience, it can be a good disruptor, as well as prevent breath or other throat-based weapons from being used.”

The worker nodded. “Sounds useful.”

As Lindle put down the potion to grab the next one, he hesitated. “Is this really good enough for me to really become an adventurer? This doesn’t feel like much of a test.”

The guild worker laughed and rubbed the back of his head, a nervous habit Lindle was beginning to notice he had. “Usually, no. In most outposts, they would have someone more experienced or have better facilities to test your potions and personal abilities as a battle alchemist.”

“But you’re still letting me do this as my demonstration?” Lindle raised an eyebrow.

“You and your friends, you’re locals here right?” The worker asked. Lindle confirmed with a nod and they continued. “Then just take it as me making a judgment call and saying it’s fine. Like I said before, I’ve never actually seen anyone register at this outpost. Everyone here is either already an experienced journeyman adventurer, an apprentice under them, or a local, and the people here haven’t ever been interested in joining the guild as far as I recall. The glacians here that parties hire as guides have a lower causality rate than the adventurers, even if they’re a tier above their guide. Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t you all sent out into the Reach before you even have a class?”

Lindle nodded again. He hadn’t considered it before, but Lindle did suppose the guild would be aware that most people in Glacerhine went out and hunted monsters and experienced danger with or without being a part of the adventurer’s guild. If all he wanted was to hunt monsters, it would be normal for him to just go out and do it.

The worker continued. “Then yeah, I can confidently say you’re probably more qualified than most new applicants I’ve seen make the attempt to register as adventurers back home even without seeing your skills, just by virtue of surviving growing up out here. I can’t even imagine that whole migration thing you guys do, it seems insane to me.”

It was still less exciting than he imagined, but Lindle supposed the leniency worked out in his favor. If leaning on their lack of resources they had here and the reputation Glacerhine had meant he could register with less scrutiny to his abilities, then he’d take it.

Lindle still added some actual demonstration to his test, asking the worker to expend some mana and then splashing some potion on his arm to show the effects of [Alchemical Bomber]. After the worker felt his mana pool refill and Lindle explained his Feat, though he didn’t explicitly say it was a Feat, if the worker assumed it was a class Skill then it would help his class cover, the worker laughed, admitting even after explaining his reasoning, he still felt a lot better about seeing direct proof that Lindle didn’t just buy a bunch of potions and memorize information about them to feign tactical knowledge.

Once he was done, they stood up and the worker dusted the snow off his pants. “Well, I’ve seen everything I needed to. I’ll go ahead and approve all of you as apprentice-tier adventurers.” He reached out a hand for Lindle to take, and Lindle shook it. He reached out a hand to his friends too as they approached. Humphrey was hesitant, but he still shook their hand once it was his turn.

After he had shaken their hands, he led the three of them back inside, speaking as they walked. “By the way, I forgot to introduce myself, my name is Elias.”

Elias got back behind his counter, pulling out three small bronze badges. “Congratulations Lindle, Thalia, Humphrey, you’re now part of the adventurers guild. You’re free to take apprentice-tier quests now, just display your badge. When you have a name for your party, I’ve still got the form ready to finish.” Elias gave them a small bow.

“Ah, thanks for all the help,” Lindle said, taking the badge and looking down at it. There was actually a minute amount of active Ethos present in the badge according to his sense.

“Yeah, thank you Elias.” Thalia smiled at him and then looked at Humphrey, who grumbled out a thank you after a second.

“Are you going to take a quest right away?” Elias asked.

“We’ve actually got a friend looking at our options for us,” Lindle told him.

“I’ll leave you to it then,” Elias said.

Humphrey and Thalia took their badges and they walked away, seeing Dorothea waiting for them by the quest board, a handle of pages in her hands. “Congratulations you three, I heard you all got your badges, not that I had any doubt of course.” Dorothea chuckled to herself as she started laying out pages on a nearby table.

“Yep, though we weren’t able to register as a party without a name. Why didn’t you mention parties had names?” Lindle asked.

Dorothea paused and then winced. “Ah crap, I knew I forgot something. Sorry guys.”

Humphrey crossed his arms. “All the parties I’ve worked for have names, why didn’t you guys tell Lindle yours?”

Dorothea hesitated, and Lindle looked at her in curiosity. Thalia, who had picked up one of the pages, looked at her too.

“Ah well…” The mage sighed. “Our name… is really embarrassing.“

“Huh? What is it?” Lindle asked.

Dorothea blushed, glancing around and switching to hushed tones. “It’s… The Grand Nine-tail Flaming Heroes.” Her fox tail began to twitch anxiously.

Lindle blinked, as he heard Humphrey repress a snort. Thalia elbowed him in the side, and Dorothea hid her face in a hand. As no one said anything for a few more seconds, her tail twitched more.

“Rosato and I picked that name when we were 15. I hate it, so we don’t mention our party name unless we have to.”

“I see… if you hate it so much, why don’t you change it?” Thalia asked.

“We would if we could, but Chip thinks it’s funny to keep us from changing it.” The kitsune hissed out from behind her hand. “We formed the party when it was just Rosato and I, and when Chip officially registered and joined the party, he thought it was ‘cute’” She made air quotes. “Now we can’t change it because it needs to be unanimous for the guild to accept a name change.”

“So if we picked something stupid, I could make sure it sticks permanently?” Humphrey asked, snickering. Now it was Lindle who went over and hit him, punching him in the shoulder.

“Evil, but yeah, basically.” Dorothea sighed. “Make sure you pick a name you’ll want to keep, even when years in the future, don’t just pick something you think sounds awesome.”

“What does the Nine-tail part mean though? I don’t get it.” Lindle asked.

Dorothea cocked her head. “Oh, yeah, it’s a kitsune thing.” She moved her tail to the side to show it off. “Our tails, unlike fox beastmen, have an innate magic unique to our race. Sometimes we have more than one, and that magic gets a lot more powerful, though it’s rare. Most kitsune fantasize about having more tails, getting a bloodline evolution, and becoming a legendary Nine-tail, the most powerful type of kitsune. They’re mostly myths though.”

Lindle remembered the attack Rosato had used back down in the dungeon, the burst of magical fire he had unleashed inside of that monster. He needed to draw on his Int stat to boost his memory to do so, but he recalled the name of it being [Foxfire: Burst], so he assumed it was related. It had been very powerful. The damage the attack had done to the monster’s corpse still fresh in his mind. Lindle wondered how much stronger that attack would be if Rosato had more than one tail.

He activated his Ethos sense, and instead of focusing on Dorothea’s personal Ethos, which was centered visually on her chest, he looked at her tail, and sure enough, there was another, smaller core of Ethos active in her tail. It was subtle, mostly overshadowed by her main personal flame of Ethos, and he needed to concentrate hard to peer past the glow to see it, but it was still fascinating. The aspects present, if he had to sum them up, seemed to be almost entirely fox-related. He hadn’t been good enough at picking out details under his sense the first time he had used it around Dorothea and her party members, but he would bet that he would be able to see Rosato’s now too.

The thought occurred to Lindle, that if he peered close enough to his own Ethos, would he be able to make out giant-related Ethos present in himself? It was sure to be present, he had the bloodline trait, but he still didn’t like the thought.

“Anyways,” Dorothea said, breaking Lindle away from his thoughts. “Enough about me, I picked out some apprentice-tier quests for all of you.” She gestured to the pages she had spread out on the table. “There weren’t many to choose from, Glacians don’t put out a lot of jobs that they can handle or hunt down themselves, but there also aren’t a lot of apprentice-tier adventurers here to snatch them up either.”

“Well, we definitely aren’t taking this one,” Thalia said, reading through the posting she had picked up earlier.