Sacrifice Mage-Chapter 36: The Adventurer's Guild

Elder Escinca, bless the old coot, did end up sending the letter to Kostis just as I had asked. He didn’t get a reply about my query directly from the Scalekin mage. Instead, Kostis had apparently sent a different letter to the Mage Guild instead, which was where I was heading to pick it up.
That missive was only for me, with specific directions about getting an adventuring job.
Needless to say, I was pretty excited. So much so that I was able to maintain a cheery expression even when I ended up at the Rat-Catcher’s Guild somehow again.
“Why you—” The Ogre in front of the ramshackle Guildhall looked positively furious, like I had slapped his grandma. “Why are you here
again?
You spying on us, you human cur?”
“Sorry, sorry!” I said. “Just got lost again.”
“No way you got lost and ended up here
twice
. I’m going to—”
I ran. “See ya!”
It took a bit of time, but I managed to get to the Mage Guild. The letter was waiting for me at the receptionist’s desk, where Silhatsa was happy to hand it over to me.
“This isn’t a letter where Master Kostis takes a job and immediately hands it off to you, is it?” she asked.
She was teasing. I could somehow understand it despite her facial features being rather alien. Well, alien in the sense that I wasn’t exactly a snake-whisperer.
“Nope,” I said with a smile. “This is a very different sort of job. Thanks, though.”
The letter turned out to be more or less an official invitation for me to go to Ring Two. Last time, I had been accompanied by someone who was a part of Xokrist academy, so no one had truly looked askance. I supposed I could have asked for a favour from Linak, but it looked like Kostis was taking care of anyone trying to deny me entry pre-emptively.
But before I left, and eager though I was to do so, I found my way—eventually—back to the trade workshop within the Mage Guild.
This time, I actually took note of everything they had on offer. The vast majority were things I had expected a place like this would sell. Potions for regenerating mana, health tinctures, various enchantments that were activated by crushing runes, spellbound gear, etcetera. Interestingly, they also sold tomes that could teach specific Aspects.
“Still needs to be related to your Path, though,” the Rakshasa trader said in a bored voice, like he was pretty sure I was window-browsing and wasn’t actually going to buy anything. “And you got to have an open slot for it too.”
“Then what’s the point?” I asked. “I could just learn the Aspect myself, can’t I?”
He scowled at that, his horned eyelid blinking rapidly. “Can you? How in the Pits are you going to learn an Aspect you don’t have easy access to, hmm? Where in all the Banished Gods’ hair follicles are you going to find an Aspect of Ice?”
I blinked. So you needed direct contact with new elements to learn them as an Aspect. My knowledge and practical experience of actually gaining Aspects was limited. A part of me was hoping the Weave would offer choices internally, but it hadn’t yet so far, so my assumption wasn’t necessarily a correct one.
Oddities were rarer. Eyelids of a Silver Crane, a book with a metallic cover that only revealed what was written within its pages with a drop of blood, and a bottle containing the rare noxious fumes released by corpses in dungeons were just some of the few that caught my eye. Honestly, every single one of those made me curious to find out more about them, but I restrained myself.
No purchasing yet. I had enough money to buy a good amount of the basic things, but I’d wait until I had talked with Kostis. Until I really got the adventurer job and saw what I actually needed.
So, I headed off to Ring Two. The Preserve was just as nice as last time, and I actually saw real, live animals. Just fish. Near the stream, a couple of the strange, angelic beings were throwing lines into the water to reel in gleaming silver carp and smaller ones that I didn’t recognize. One of them saw me and waved at me. I waved back. Friendly folk.
The guard at the Preserve gate inspected my letter. He eventually grunted and stepped aside, allowing me entry.
My stupid heart was thudding again, but I decided to pay it no mind. Sure, I’d probably get lost on the way to the address Kostis had indicated within his letter, but hopefully, I wouldn’t keep him waiting for too long.
After ending up at the gates of another rare Preserve within Ring Two and in the kitchens of a fancy vegetarian restaurant where I was repeatedly asked if I was the new chef, I found myself at my real target—the Adventurer’s Guild. Once again, I had to show the letter from Kostis, but I was allowed within in short order.
Unlike the vast majority of buildings I had seen so far in Ring Two, the Adventurer’s Guildhall had nothing elitist or rich about it. It looked more like someone had taken one of the apartments from Ring Three and plopped it down in Ring Two, remodelling it slightly to serve its new function. A square roof, small windows, chimneys where orphans died, and tiny windows made up the weirdly industrial age design.
Inside was as rowdy as I was expecting. People of all races talking, gambling, fighting, squabbling, and being a general chaotic mess. It was honestly a bit of a shocking contrast with how pleasant and orderly Ring Two was outside.
The stench of sweat and drink and something burning clogged up my nose as soon as I took my first step inside. My skin felt scratchy. I almost slipped on some spilled drink, then got cussed out by a large, belligerent humanoid fellow with a moose’s head before I finally spotted Kostis.
He was, unsurprisingly, at a table where people were obviously betting on something. I got closer and found that two rickety little metal puppets were clashing against each other, trying to push the other one out of a red circle on the ground like a weird sumo competition. Kostis was eagerly shouting along with the rest of the little crowd, cheering on whichever mini automaton he had placed his bets on.
“Hello, Master.” I had to raise my voice to be heard over the din of the crowd. “Hope I didn’t keep you waiting for long.”
He didn’t hear me at first and only looked over when I patted his shoulder, then flashed me a toothy—fang-y?—smile. “Hello, dear boy! Which one are you going to bet on, Ross?”
“Uh, can I bet on myself getting a job here?”
Kostis blinked at me, then laughed sibilantly. “You certainly can. And it’s a winning bet too. Just give me a moment. The folks aren’t here anyway, I don’t think, so we’ve got some time.”
I tried my best to be patient. Although, I did step back. There was more sweat than air in the crowd near the fighting automatons and I was partial to breathing normally and not getting jostled around.
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on NovelFire. any occurrences.
Credit to Kostis, it didn’t take long for the little match to end. Going by his pained groan, the automaton that ended up winning wasn’t the one he had placed his wager on.
“Well, that was a mistake.” He shook his scaly head, before leading me away from the crowd. “Didn’t lose much though, so it’s alright. I’m certain someone was messing with things, however…”
“Is there a way to tell if someone is using an Aspect?” I blinked, remembering the gems embedded in Kostis’s scales. “Oh right, you can tell. But I’m guessing it’s harder in a crowd?”
He sighed. “It is more difficult to pinpoint the source of Aspects in a gathering like this. Also very difficult to determine the Aspect’s nature. For all I know, someone was using their Aspect to scratch their arse.”
All I heard was the strange translation. Arse, not ass. Why was the Universal Language Approximator going for a more British translation when I decidedly wasn’t from anywhere that used that variant?
We ended up near the bar, where Kostis bought me a strange drink that looked like Gatorade and tasted like machine oil. Was it kerosene? It had to be kerosene. Apparently, getting your innards set aflame was some sort of weird but not uncommon delicacy in Ring Two. The people Kostis was waiting for apparently still hadn’t shown up, so we chatted some more.
This time, I wasn’t about to forget what I had last time.
“Say, master,” I began. “You wouldn’t happen to know a powerful mage with Dimensional Weaving as an Aspect, would you?”
Kostis frowned at me a bit. “Dimensional Weaving is no Aspect I’ve heard of…” He blinked, though it was only his nictitating membrane moving horizontally. “Ah, I see what you mean.
Weaving
is an older term for using your Aspects, Affixes, and the like. Anything to do with the Weave, basically. It has fallen out of favour, so you don’t hear it as often anymore.”
In other words, that gangster-mage was
old
. “That doesn’t answer my question, although I’m grateful for the little lesson.”
“Well, I know him to an extent, yes.” Kostis lowered his voice. “A wandering Paragon, someone who is capable of performing feats beyond what most are capable of in this world. A direct contributor to why the Council looks the other way when it comes to the legal issues surrounding your summoning.”
I blinked. A mage strong enough to not only tear between worlds, but to
also
prevent the Council from acting against
me
, someone who was barely even related to said mage. For all I knew, I was nothing more than a discarded sock to the guy.
But the Council didn’t know that, so they were trying to keep me at arm’s length.
“I know it isn’t ideal, Ross,” Kostis said seriously. “But pursuing someone like that currently… wouldn’t be to your best interests.”
I closed my eyes for a second and took some relaxing breaths. An Iron going after a Paragon was ridiculous. That fact didn’t ease my feelings at just how unfair it was—how, regardless of my regret at being brought here or lack thereof, I had been deprived of a
choice
in the matter—but there was no point being mad at people who were actually trying to help.
“Why is the Adventuring Guild in Ring Two and the Mage Guild in Ring Three?” I looked around, taking a slight sip of my drink. “If anything, I thought it would be the other way around.”
Kostis slowly smiled. “Oh, the guilds aren’t limited to any Rings, so long as they can pay for it. Both guilds have guildhalls in both Rings. In fact, I think Guildmaster Lancko was even trying to get permission to set up a guildhall in Ring One, the cloud-headed bastard, even though his Ring Two guildhall is just a couple of administrative offices and an oh-so-fancy meeting room. Nothing like this, I assure you.”
“Huh. So is the Adventurer’s Guild even bigger and rowdier in Ring Three, then?”
“Not quite. The Guildmaster of the Adventurer’s Guild is just a rich prick who likes to piss off other rich pricks so decided to make his Ring Two guildhall as close to its Ring Three version as possible. Naturally, nothing that goes on here is
illegal
, much to the dismay of everyone else in Ring Two.”
Kostis laughed uproariously at that. Then got another drink from the bar. The Scalekin bartender there made light conversation, asking Kostis who his new friend was.
I felt a bit like Aurier when Kostis proudly mentioned I was an Iron-ranked mage who had tested out as Gold-rank and had completed a few Silver-ranked jobs in just a week or two. It was a strange, warm feeling to be praised like that, especially when the bartender’s slitted eyes widened appreciatively and welcomed me properly to the Adventurer’s Guild.
“So,” I said, trying to change the subject. “What’s this adventuring job supposed to entail?”
“Oh, yes, I suppose you’d be curious.” Kostis took a tasty sip of his drink. “I’m going to recommend you to some dungeon delvers as a new expeditioner.”
“Dungeon exploration…” I wasn’t opposed to the idea. I had figured that the adventures the Adventurer’s Guild members went on weren’t exactly inside the city. It would satisfy my curiosity of just what the world was like beyond Zairgon, considering the sunless state of it. But— “I’m not sure leaving the cult for an extended period of time is good right now…”
That was a bit presumptuous of me. What
had
I done? Killed one Thrall and given some speeches? Made some people feel hopeful and encouraged? Was that really that big of a difference? I wasn’t sure if I was selling myself short or hyping myself up too much.
“Well, that’s fine and dandy,” Kostis said after slurping down some more not-kerosene. “Because you’re going to a dungeon inside Zairgon.”
“
Inside
the city?”
“Well… under it would be more accurate. There are interconnected dungeons running through Zairgon volcano. The party I am recommending you to will be exploring one of those.”
That was a bit of a relief. I wasn’t surprised there were dungeons that close to the city, considering the highly populated Adventurer’s and Mage Guilds. It did make me wonder just how exactly dungeons functioned in this world. A conversation for another time.
“Thank you,” I said. “I’d feel better knowing I can still return quickly in case of an emergency.”
“I don’t know about
quickly
, but you’ll definitely be closer than if you were outside certainly.”
“What are the other adventurers like, master? Do they have…” I wasn’t sure how to phrase it. “Say, Unique Paths like mine? Are they mages? Do adventurers need specific Paths like the Mage Guild does?”
He flashed a small smile at me. “You’ll see what they’re like soon enough. And no, the Adventurer’s Guild doesn’t have stringent requirements like the Mage Guild does. You need proven experience. A powerful Path helps, but it doesn’t necessarily need to be
mage-like
.”
“Interesting. Speaking of, how
do
you manifest powerful Paths? Apart from just genetically inheriting them, I mean.”
“Well, for one, there are exceptional circumstances such as yours that brings out a Path. But on the whole, manifesting Paths that count as mage-like unfortunately isn’t a science. Apprentices taken on by mages will just as often fail to manifest a Path that would be accepted by the Mage Guild as they would succeed. One of the many areas of research at Xokrist.”
Hmm, that wasn’t surprising. I hadn’t learned any particularly useful information, but it seemed actionable info was in general pretty scarce.
The mention of Xokrist had us conversing about my experiences there. Kostis was very interested in knowing who I had worked with and what I had done. It was, apparently, not at all surprising they were willing to upgrade the job rank just to get more research data.
That in turn made me ask about Kostis’s relation with the academy. He mentioned that he hadn’t studied there himself, but he had been there often and had even given guest lectures at the request of the headmaster, who was also a former member of the Zairgon Council. That tidbit was interesting, because it revealed that the Councillors were generally people who held active roles in Zairgon’s society, not career politicians as I had originally expected.
Our conversation was cut short when a shadow fell over us. I looked to my left to see the largest Rakshasa I had ever laid eyes on standing over us. It wasn’t even an exaggeration. Usually, Rakshasa were what I called human-height. Six feet or thereabouts, with some falling to high five feet.
This Rakshasa cleared seven feet easily, and could stand shoulder to shoulder with most Ogres I had seen, and look down on the shorter ones among them.
“Ah, Ugnash!” Kostis said with a fanged smile. “Finally! You kept me waiting. But since you’re doing me a little favour, I’ll forgive you this time.” He indicated me. “This is my young protégé, Mage Ross Moreland.”
Ugnash looked down at me with a face and head that had more scars than it had horns and hair. He hummed. “A human, eh? He appears rather scrawny.”
“I feel like most people are scrawny next to you,” I said. “Uh, I mean, nice to meet you.”
“And mouthy…”
I scowled, highly disliking the adjective of mouthy.
Kostis laughed. “I think you’re going to have a splendid time together.” He gave me a brief, encouraging glance. “Continue to make me proud, Ross. No doubt you will, and no doubt, making little old
me
proud shouldn’t even be one of your priorities. But I’ve got faith in you!”
And with that, he began slithering away before he was lost. I hadn’t even gotten to thank him for introducing us. Pushing down the part that wanted to tell Kostis I’d have felt more comfortable if he had stuck around, I faced Ugnash again.
“Hmm,” he said, inspecting me again. “Kostis praises you highly, but I’m not generally one to take anybody’s word for someone else. I prefer to see things for myself.”
“His praise isn’t misplaced,” I said.
“Oh, I’m sure.” Ugnash grinned for the first time, his lips pulling down on a scar. “But I have a feeling we’ll be seeing you prove yourself soon enough.”
And that was when the rest of the little party arrived.