Ember of Invention

As she scanned the quest listing again, the rest of them looked at Thalia in curiosity.

“What’s wrong with that one?” Dorothea asked. “None of the ones I picked had anything that seemed wrong with them.”

Lindle moved over to read the listing. Nothing in particular stood out to him. He wasn’t very familiar with quest postings, but it looked like all the quest asked for was the extermination of a couple of Spearclaw Raptors in order to help disperse a pack of them. That wasn’t uncommon, hunters and hired adventurers regularly culled monster populations if they were too close to the grove or important routes through the Glacial Reach.

“The quest itself isn’t the problem, it’s who made the posting,” Thalia said, pointing near the top of the listing at a blank space where there would normally be a name present. “Clearing the Spearclaws out from that part of the migration route is supposed to be my grandma’s job, I overheard her talking about it with one of the other elders.”

“Why would she be sent out just to clear out some Spearclaws?” Humphrey questioned. “That seems a bit beneath her level.”

Thalia scowled. “Because there’s also supposed to be a Spear Tyrant in that area too.”

Dorothea’s eyes went wide. “But that’s not in the listing. If it is your grandmother, isn’t it really dangerous to post a quest for apprentice tiers without mentioning that? People could die.”

Thalia sighed. “No, I know how my grandma thinks. The quest is only for the Spearclaws because she doesn’t want to deal with the small fry. She probably intends on following whoever takes the quest, let the Spear Tyrant scare them, and then jump in to fight it herself at the last minute. I bet she’d be delighted to find us taking this quest.”

Dorothea and Humphrey both seemed shocked, but everything Thalia was saying lined up with Lindle’s experience with Madam Holly. She hadn’t shown up for any ‘surprise training’ since a little before his birthday, telling him that she was going to give him a bit of a reprieve, but he was still tensing up in anticipation, ready to activate [Flow] whenever they walked outside out of habit. A prank such as that was exactly the type of thing she’d love to pull off.

Lindle nodded. “Yeah… agreed, veto on that one.”

“She’ll be disappointed, but oh well. She’ll eventually stop lazing around and take care of it if no one takes the bait.” Thalia said, putting the page away.

They both started going back through the other quest postings as Humphrey and Dorothea uneasy looks.

Humphrey shifted, glancing at Lindle and Thalia. “They’ve both complained about her before, but still…”

Dorothea copied him. “I’m unsure if I should still be concerned or not, especially if we’re just going to leave that posting here…”

Lindle flipped through some more pages. It was interesting to see what types of quests people were posting, it was a lot more informative than he expected. Seeing what specific things people around the village wanted or needed, as well as giving him a better idea of what monsters were in what places around the Reach. It was almost like being given a detailed report of monster movements by a team of scouts and rangers. Eventually, he came across a quest that made him pause.

“Oh hey, I found one I recognize too,” Lindle said, holding up the page with a smile.

“Oh?” Thalia asked, leaning in and reading it. “Oh hey, yeah that’s your mom. She wants some rare reagents from deeper in the Black Wood.” She looked at him expectantly, as if she was waiting for him to do something. When Lindle didn’t do anything, still holding the page, she raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t you going to put it away?”

“Why would I do that?” Lindle asked. “It seems pretty doable for us, and we could definitely get some EXP and good materials there.”

“You don’t mind your first quest basically doing some errands for your mom?” Dorothea seemed surprised. “That’s a pretty good reward too, you okay taking money from her?”

“Why not? I already do that, she pays me for work in the store. As long as I earn it right?”

“I um… I guess that’s fair?” The kitsune shrugged.

“Well, I’m not. Don’t think I’m comfortable doing a job and taking your mom’s gold, I’d honestly prefer doing it as a favor to that.” Humphrey cut in, letting out a sigh. “This is part of why I didn’t even like this idea, it feels so weird. Can we please just take a quest that doesn’t come from one of our families or someone we know personally?”

Thalia blinked, before she took a good half of the quests and placed them in the veto pile. “What?” She said after seeing Humphrey’s exasperated face. “I have a big family, and I know a lot of people.”

“Fine,” The ranger said, going up the remaining quests and picking one up. “Here, how about this one?”

Lindle and Thalia crowded around Humphrey to read the paper. This quest was also deep in the Black Wood, one of extermination. It had been noted that necromantic energy had been discovered gathering in the area, corrupting the plants, and reanimating old corpses. It wasn’t a large amount of energy, the hunter likely having found it early before it had time to spread, but it was important that someone cleared out the undead and a spellcaster purified the area.

“Oh, this is perfect for us!” Thalia exclaimed.

“So I take it you can purify the energy?” Humphrey asked.

“Yeah,” Thalia lowered her voice. “With my new wand, I definitely can.”

“I can’t say I’m not curious about what I could gather from something like that/ I’m familiar with a lot of stuff as ingredients that can be found in the Reach, we’ve never had a use for undead before, but now…” Lindle mused.

“Undead?” Dorothea questioned, overhearing him. “You wanna use undead as…” She trailed off, looking queasy.

“Well, yeah. Aren’t you curious about how it could be used?”

“Necromancy’s pretty frowned upon though…”

Thalia cocked her head. “I mean, not really? Sure wild undead are big problems, but I’ve never seen anyone have issues with necromancy spells in the circle.”

“Seriously? And the Polar Church let’s it happen?” Now Dorothea looked really shocked. She looked between the three of them, and they all shrugged. Necromancy wasn’t exactly common, especially outside of the circle, but Lindle had heard of it before. He knew most Soarians didn’t like it, in class he had even learned that the Polar church directly banned its use for their members, but that didn’t seem to affect many people’s attitude about it in Glacerhine.

“I doubt they don’t know about it, but that’s seriously not normal for them to tolerate that kind of magic.” She muttered to herself, before glancing back at them. “I guess that’s not important now, I can ask Chip later. If you think everything’s fine, I guess you can’t go wrong bashing some skeletons and zombies for your first quest. Not much more classic than that. I mean, there are goblins, but I don’t think they live this far south.” Dorothea still seemed a bit nervous, her words rushed.

“So… yeah. Let’s go take it then.” Humphrey said, before walking towards the counter with quest in tow. Thalia and Lindle joined him. Lindle glanced back, and Dorothea took a few breaths, before giving him a thumbs up and then going to put back all the other quest postings back.

Elias greeted them. “Back already, you got your quest all picked out?”

Humphrey grunted affirmatively and placed the quest on the counter.

“Wonderful. Just to get you used to the process, can you all please hold out your badges?”

They all complied, and Elias held out another crystal, this one blue instead of black. He waved it against their badges, and then over the quest paper. “There, all done. I’ll list you all as taking the same quest together.”

“Thank you Elias,” Thalia said. She gave him a bright smile, and Elias laughed, rubbing the back of his head as his eyes darted away.

“Just doing my job, it’s no trouble.”

Lindle smiled at him too. “Yeah, but you’ve still been a big help.”

The red already on the guild worker’s face spread a bit more, now fully looking away. “Seriously, please don’t mention it.”

Humphrey sighed, and grabbed both of them, pulling them away. “Come on, we got everything we needed, let’s go.”

Lindle and Thalia were a bit confused by the sudden exit, but they waved goodbye as they left. Dorothea led them to the Slumbering Scale, buying them all drinks to celebrate… well a lot of things, them all becoming adventurers, Lindle’s first levels, and his success with his class so far.

This time armed with a raised Con stat, Lindle didn’t even feel tipsy once Thalia and Humphrey had said they had enough, so he stopped as well. Eventually, the rest of Dorothea’s party found themselves in the inn as well. They had congratulated the three of them, and Lindle took the chance to confirm Dorothea’s story about their party name. Rosato’s embarrassment and Chip’s uproarious laughter were confirmation enough before they even spoke.

They all took the time to compare notes and get advice on how to go about the quest. It was a mixed bag since after he had gotten a few drinks in him, Humphrey had become outspoken enough to argue with Rosato when it came to parts the ranger’s experience surviving in the Reach touched on. Luckily Rosato was good-natured enough to debate directly with Humphrey, and Lindle thought the outcome was better for it, Rosato’s experience in working in the formation of varied skill sets of an adventuring party allowed him to immediately apply Humphrey’s knowledge of the location and monsters to his advice, adapting it to their party.

Afterwards, Humphrey had grumbled, but he seemed to have gained some respect for the kitsune knight, which was in all honesty a big relief to Lindle. Once they had all eaten and drunk their fill, they all went home to make plans and ready themselves for their quest.

It took about two days for the area outside of the grove’s protection to clear, but once it had, the three of them set out for their first quest.