The woman who strode in-between the two was short, stout, and solid, as if her body was carved from marble. She had a bald-shaved head which was tattooed with what looked like scrollwork or calligraphy in a language Kryos didn’t recognize, and a well-braided beard bedecked with gemstones. She was wearing no-nonsense clothes for going out-and-about on the town. When she spoke, it sounded like a roaring waterfall, as she said, “I heard we had a new arrival in unusual circumstances.”
Kryos stayed put, unsure of what to say or do. But, he didn’t need to say anything, as Marcella replied for him. “That’s this one here. Kryos . . . I never got his last name.” She looked at him. “What is your last name?”
Kryos smiled, and then immediately snapped his lips down as he saw the mayor back up once he accidentally flashed his sharp canids. “Teleris. That’s my last name.”
The stout woman nodded. “Well, allow me to return the favor. I am Beatrice Vertila, the mayor of Suncrest. I must thank you for helping to save some of the night shift workers.”
Gary stood up from his bed and clapped a hand on Kryos' shoulder—which required the smaller man to stand on his tippy-toes. “Yeah! This big guy saved me! I only lost one finger.”
Beatrice’s face was inscrutable as she looked at the injured miner, then she looked at Kryos once more. “Well, my thanks to you nonetheless.” She crossed her arms behind her and stood there, like an imposing, immovable bulwark. “How did you get here?”
Kryos chose to keep his answers the same as before. “I was magically transported,” he replied as he slung his pack over his shoulder. “I just ended up in some tunnels and happened upon your folks in trouble.”
“And what do you plan on doing now that you are here? Do you intend to leave?” there was almost a hint of pleading at the edge of her question.
Kryos shook his head. “I hadn’t intended to. I have little money. But, I’m strong, I know how to fight, and my father told me about a place called the Quest Conclave where I could earn my keep.”
The woman grinned at that. “Ah, well, Suncrest has two Adventurer Guilds that host Quest Boards.” Her eyes narrowed, and then widened. “What type of Class is ‘Mass Dragon’?”
Marcella quickly interrupted, “It’s neat, isn’t it?! Apparently, half-dragons don’t get regular Classes like the rest of us! I have no clue what type of Skills or Traits they get from it, but it should be quite exciting!” She turned to Kryos. “You have to come back to me for all your checkups and health needs. I can’t wait to learn more about you.”
Well, I appreciate someone having an authentic interest in me, Kryos thought, feeling flattered.
The mayor’s mouth tightened into a grimace. “Given your self-described combat prowess” —her eyes flickered over to Gary— “and that you fought hostile creatures, I would direct you to the Irontrail instead of the Hearthguard.”
Kryos looked at her with a blank expression. “And the difference being?”
“One is focused around helping with internal stability—think of the Hearthguard like a group that augments city services—whereas the other deals with external threats.”
Gary pulled away from Kryos and moved to grab his few meager items from near the bed. “You should probably check out the Irontrail. They’d love a big frontliner like you.”
“And that means you’d probably get injured,” Marcella hastily added. “Not that I’d want you to be hurt,” she followed up.
The mayor turned around and began to leave. She paused in front of the green skinned woman. “Guide our new arrival to the Irontrail.” The mayor then turned fully and looked at Kryos. “Welcome to Suncrest. I hope you find your place.” She then left, followed by the male guard.
Marcella grabbed the basket of bread and made for her office. “Take care!”
Gary patted Kryos’ shoulder. “Come on, let’s head out. My house is on the way. I’m sure my wife will want to thank the man who saved my life.” He led the way, and Kryos with his one bag and permanently-borrowed white shirt and pants headed to the door.
The guard led them out, and with a quick glance back, she curtly said, “Stick near me.” Her voice was soft despite the shortness of her words.
Kryos racked his brain, trying to recall the name of her Species, as he was sure his dad had told him stories about people that looked just like her.
Was it dryad? He thought. No, those were plant-people with all plant parts. She’s part planty . . . maybe half-dryad? Is that a thing? I mean, I’m a half-dragon, so why not?
The town was alive. It was mid-morning, and people were hustling and bustling, going to and fro from work to business, from business to shop, and from shops back to work. Kryos had never seen so many people before, and the sheer amount of sounds, the chatter of voices—most in the common tongue but some in other languages he didn’t recognize—was overwhelming.
There were far more smells as well, all types of scents of foods assaulted his senses—sweet, salty, spicy. And underneath, there was also a more rotten smell of sewage, garbage, and the stench of sweat and the unwashed. He balked for a moment at that.
Then it got quiet. Kryos looked around, and saw that every eye was on him. Every. Single. Person. He was at the center of their attention, because the hospital had to be at the town square, right smack in the center of town—or so he assumed—next to what looked like the city hall, since the mayor stepped into it a moment after the crowd stopped their chatter.
What do I do? Kryos thought.
The guard kept walking, and glanced back at him. “Come on, half-dragon. Let’s go.”
Then, people started whispering.
“Half-dragon? Did I hear that right?” a young shopkeep said.
“Like the stories mama told me?” a child asked an older teenager.
An older man grumbled, “Bad luck, black dragons, is what I heard. Like black cats.”
“Do you think he’ll steal everything?” a woman asked. “All of the silver in the mines?”
“How do you even know it’s a he?” a man asked in response.
Kryos followed the guard, staring at the ground behind her feet. He could feel all of the stares, the looks, and just like in the mines before, everyone paused what they were doing when he walked by them.
Gary seemed to not care in the slightest, and as they walked, he would tap Kryos and point out various locations of interest in the town. “That there is the best smith, if you need anything fixed up. I imagine if you’re going to be with Irontrail, they’ll kit you out with some armor. But this guy will do custom work.”
Kryos made sure to note down the locations for future reference. Still, he felt that sense of isolation and loneliness from all of the continuing utterances all around. The advice of his parents warred in his thoughts. His dad’s urges that people were good, and his mom’s pushing towards acting like a dragon, and playing off of these people’s beliefs for his own gain.
There has to be a balancing point, he thought. There’s going to be some people whose minds I’ll never be able to change—sorry, dad. Those people, I should go with mom’s advice to deal with.
“Ah, home sweet home,” Gary said.
Kryos looked up. Sure enough, they had ended up along a street which had a few rows of houses that were fairly uniform in nature: three-squares stacked atop one another, with a small garden out front for vegetables and herbs, and a little porch that was covered by a canvas awning stretched out with wood.
A woman sat on a chair under the awning, and she bolted to her feet and rushed down the little garden path, all-but-tackling Gary who met her halfway. “I’ve been worried sick,” she said.
Gary hugged her tight. “I’m alright, Yessa.”
The woman was a little shorter than Gary, with brown hair like his. She looked past Gary and seemed startled at Kryos standing there. “Uhm . . . who is this with you?”
Gary pulled away and waved Kryos over. “Yessa, this is Kryos. Kryos, this is my wife. Yessa, Kryos saved me from an incident during the night shift.” He held up his bandaged hand. “Only lost one finger instead of my life because of him.”
Yessa’s eyes went wide and she dipped her head. “Kryos . . . you have all my thanks in the world. If you need anything—”
Gary interrupted, “I’ve offered him the spare room if he needs it.”
“Of course!” Yessa said with a grin. “Any time you need a roof over your head or some food to warm your belly, you come right here.”
Kryos smiled, feeling quite satisfied that his father’s advice had paid off. Some people were genuinely good. “If I need either, you can bet I’ll come by.”
The guard let out an irritated sigh. “Come on, half-dragon.”
Kryos dipped his head. “Until next time, Gary.” He turned and followed the guard as they continued down the road.
Throughout their walk, Kryos didn’t just feel those stares and hear those whispers of people he passed by . . . he felt the instinct of his blood, of his soul, calling to him. In all directions, just like the night before, and in the mine before that. It was more subtle now, as if his body had acclimated to being around it, or differentiated that the wealth around him was owned and thus would not be easy to claim.
In any event, the warmth that he had felt all around his torso the night before had faded, and instead he just felt a little tingle around the edges of his collarbone in each direction. Experimenting a little bit, he tried to focus on different directions, and found to his slight satisfaction that he could almost focus in on some source of wealth or another—though he had no clue which was which, distance, which was more valuable, or anything of that nature.
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Perhaps that is something that will come with power, Kryos thought. I know mom said that she can detect a gold coin up to a mile away.
They reached the edges of Suncrest that Kryos had seen from the mountain mine entrance the night before. The buildings were far more spread out, and dirt paths extended from the cobblestone ones they had been walking, leading off to fishing, farming, and logging hamlets.
The guard let out a grunt, then turned and faced Kryos, eyes narrowing. “You’ll fit in better out here.” She began to walk past him into the town proper.
“Wait,” Kryos said, turning after her. “Where’s the Adventurer Guild?”
The woman glanced back at him, and pointed with her spear down the dirt road. “That way about a half-mile. Three story building. Can’t miss it. Business brings you in. Keep it to that.” She turned and departed.
Kryos stared at her back and got the message. They want me out, he thought. At least the guard does. Perhaps the mayor. I know the townspeople had mixed reactions . . .
He turned and began trudging down the dirt road, feeling the packed substance under his feet-claws as the sun shone down onto his shoulders. He felt heat in his cheeks. A real dragon wouldn’t have been thrown out of a town like that, they would have intimidated everyone into submission, cowing them into service.
But he wasn’t a true dragon. He was a half-dragon. A weak one, at that. Only level two, with a pitiful hoard.
Kryos looked ahead. Well, he thought, I have a plan. Get to this guild hall, join it, make money, and grow in power.
The guard was right, Kryos couldn’t miss the building he came upon about six minutes later. The dirt road had another cut, brick-lined, cobblestone path leading off to the side, toward the lake. There was a twelve-foot-high wall made of brick, with wicked-looking sharp, iron spikes that jutted down from the top at a steep angle to prevent people from climbing up.
The walls hid the first floor of a three story building, with a domed roof. A single spike jutted up from the dome, and Kryos could see the reason for the name of the Guild—a hollow, metal monster, forged as an artistic piece, was mounted atop the spike. Across the second floor’s exterior wall, in plain steel letters that looked nailed to the wood, the word’s IRONTRAIL spelled out the location clearly.
Kryos walked down the path and through the open wooden door in the walls. He went up to the door to the building, and his hand went to the latch. “Here I go,” he whispered. “I hope you’re right, dad.” He pushed the door open.
The room was easily fifty feet across in all directions, filled with tables that had anywhere from two to four chairs apiece. Along one wall was a massive, blindingly-white, sparkling rectangle that made Kryos wince. It illuminated the entire room in its glow, preventing any need for any other light source. Curtain rods ran along the top, and the fabric had been drawn to either side.
Across from him were a series of cabinets, marked out with various numbers, and with key holes—some of which still had keys in them, and some of which had the keys removed. A wood lectern stood on the far left near the farthest of the cabinets. Another door was near the back-right of that far wall, next to a set of stairs that led up and doubled back on themselves to ascend higher.
There were twelve people present in the space, and all of them looked at Kryos the moment he opened the door. “Hi,” he said, trying to put as much enthusiasm into his voice as he could, but it came out as a bit harsher and more grating than he intended—he chalked it up to his thoughts from earlier. “I was told by the mayor to come here.”
The various people looked at each other, and they were seemingly sharing silent exchanges of similar thoughts. But one person stood out, because she did not look at Kryos with any sense of distrust, or suspicion, or curiosity . . . she seemed casually interested, if bored. She had pale, blue skin, sea-green eyes, bright coral-blue hair, pointed ears, and was petite with a slim frame: but was dressed in studded leather armor, with a rapier sheathed along her hip, and a few daggers stuck into a bandolier. Kryos could also see the pointed ears—much pointier than his—jutting out from her hair.
A sea elf? He thought. Or half-sea-elf? If she was a full sea elf, she would have gills on her neck . . . but mom did say that they can have gills on their sides also.
Kryos scratched the back of his head, feeling his treasure sense, that instinctual draconic urge, tickle and push his attention toward the lockers in the back. “Well, uhm, my name is Kryos. My dad is a level seventy-seven Maestro, and he told me that there’s money to be made through the Quest Conclave—”
The sea-elf-lady broke the silence and interrupted Kryos, saying in a lilting, sardonic tone, “So, are you here to rob the place? Going to take all the treasure?”
Her smile had no warmth to it—she was putting it on like a mask. Kryos knew that well enough from his dad teaching him how to read people. Kryos let out a little laugh at that and shook his head. “No. When I said money to be made, I meant working for it. Not taking it.”
The bit of mirth on her face vanished. “Oh, you’re serious.” She slipped off of her seat and walked over to him, standing a few feet in front of him. She only came up to his chest in height, so he had to look down at her quite a bit. “Well then, what are you good at? I don’t see any gear with you.”
Kryos glanced down at his basic clothes. “Yeah, my sword broke when I killed some tunneling creature, and my armor got torn to bits by some tentacle things when I saved some miners.”
That got some conversation going in hushed tones around the room.
“I heard about that from last night,” one man said.
Another added, “Someone said it was a Ssari who slithered from the depths and saved them.
Kryos instantly recognized the name of the serpent-folk Species. “No, that was me,” he said. “Half-dragon, not Ssari.” He looked back at the elf, who was still staring at him. “I think the mayor said I look like a frontliner.”
She looked him up and down, and he saw her eyes linger on his pouch, and then his hands. “I could see that . . . one piece of advice, foundling, don’t take a Quest until someone explains how it works.” She turned on her foot with a deft grace and went to the stairs, ascending them with speed and vanishing from Kryos’ sight.
He managed to activate his HUD before she departed. Rogue (I).
She was sizing me up, he thought. But . . . there was something else . . . I felt something there. It was a dangerous feeling. Not necessarily that she had ill intent, but more like he needed to watch himself around her.
Kryos looked at the other adventurers, who were still looking at him, but had continued their hushed conversations. “Uhm . . . so how do I sign up?”
One of the adventurers, an older human with greying hair, and wearing heavy chainmail, stood up. “I can handle ya, foundling.”
Must be the term for a new adventurer, Kryos thought.
“The names Pavish,” the man said as he walked over toward the stand near the lockers and waved Kryos over. Kryos followed him, and the man stood behind the stand and grabbed something from a slot under it. Kryos recognized it as a book, or ledger. “You want to join up?”
“That’s right,” Kryos replied.
“Before you can, you need to know the basics.”
“I know a little,” Kryos said. He pointed at the board. “The Quest Conclave makes those, right?”
“Ayup.”
“Irontrail would be an Adventurer Guild, a local company, that purchases a Quest Board, which is sort of like a license to operate.”
“Right so far.”
Kryos smiled, happy that he had retained so much information from his dad’s lessons, despite daydreaming here and there during them. “Right. So there’s local taxes and whatnot, and the Quest Conclave takes a . . . is it twenty percent cut of Quest rewards?”
“Ten percent,” Pavish replied as he began flipping pages. “Anyone can go to any Quest Board, write up a Quest, put it up on the board, and then shove the reward into the board. It’s stored there, with the ten percent taken automatically for the Conclave.” He pointed at the Board, then pointed in the direction of the town. “The Quest then goes out to any Board within range of the objective.”
“Right, I remember my dad teaching me that part,” Kryos said. “Then if you want to take a Quest, and you’re a Guild member, you touch the Quest, and it goes inert. You get a temporary tattoo that tracks your progress, and if you die—”
“—Or if it has a set duration or time limit,” Pavish said, cutting Kryos off, “then the Quest reactivates at the board. Finish the Quest, the tattoo shifts from black to silver. You touch the Quest Board, the Quest is marked as completed, the giver is magically notified in their HUD, and the reward is dispensed from the board.” He then cleared his throat, and turned the book around to face Kryos. “If you want to join the Irontrail, you need to pay an initial fee. Ten silver coins. You need some gear as well, so to kit you out in the basics, that’ll be an additional five.”
Kryos’ heart skipped a beat. He had money, but there was a vehement disgust that roiled in his gut at the idea of parting with his hard-earned wealth. It was his, it was part of his hoard. How could he ever part with it?
Yet, he knew that his scales could only take so much punishment. Sure, they were strong and durable—blades or claws coming in at angles would skate off—but the suckers of those monsters he fought in the mines were serrated and sawed through. He needed some hefty protection . . . and a weapon. His claws were well and good, but he didn’t like the idea of chipping or breaking one—that hurt a lot.
Reluctantly, he reached into his Trader’s Pouch and pulled out the fifteen silver.
Pavish took the money, slid all but five of it into a pouch, and then threw that pouch across the room to another adventurer. “Into the board,” he said. That adventurer took the bag and shoved it into the frame of the board, where Kryos watched it melt into the white surface. Pavish then handed Kryos a filled pen. “Sign on the line, and you’ll be an adventurer with the Irontrail.” He took the other five and pocketed it.
Kryos took the pen, then paused. “One question . . . what if I want to move on eventually? To move cities?”
Pavish shrugged. “Then you move on. You’ll always be an Irontrail member. This book is linked to the Quest Conclave’s ledgers.”
Then, something popped into his head. “Why’d you pocket the five?”
Pavish chuckled. “Arming and armoring you with some basic equipment is something we are doing. Irontrail has an ‘ask’ of our members—ten percent of what you get, you donate to keep our supplies topped up, and in our vault for those needs. Housing, repairs, food, drink, equipment, all of that.”
Lightning struck Kryos’ mind as an idea flashed through his thoughts. I . . . that’s genius . . . if I build enough wealth, then I could form my own Adventuring Guild, get adventurers, provide all of that stuff, but use the vault as my hoard . . . that is a way I could have a secure hoard that can accumulate wealth much faster than I could on my own, since I’d have multiple people contributing.
Kryos signed, and the moment his name finished, he felt a twinge of pain along the inside of his left forearm. Glancing down, he saw that atop his scales, written in crimson lettering that stood out against the black, was the word IRONTRAIL.
Pavish blew on the ink in the book, shut it, and put it under the shelf. He then turned around, grabbed one of the keys in the locker, and handed it to Kryos. “Number eighteen. Welcome to the Irontrail.”
As Kryos took it, he heard another adventurer mutter, “Whatcha bet the half-dragon is going to skim off the top?”
The one across from them chuckled. “Two silver they take more than their share on their first Quest.”
“Done deal.”
Kryos saw Pavish give him a pitying look that quickly vanished. “Let’s get you kitted out. A big fellow like you can probably wear some heavy armor, yes?”
“I’m fairly strong,” Kryos replied as he followed Pavish into the back room near the stairs.
The older man led him into a storage room which had another set of stairs going down. He explained that was the larder and cellar, and Kryos had free access to it as needed. Supply kits were down there with enough travel rations to get anywhere in the area around Suncrest for a lengthy, week-long excursion. The storage room proper had several armor sets and weapons.
Kryos opted for a sturdy metal shield, and seeing how his dad’s sword had shattered, elected to grab a hefty, flanged mace to complement it. He also grabbed a suit of chainmail with half-plate. Durability over anything else: he had the strength and size for it, and he knew it would be foolish to try and rely on speed or dexterity when the Skills he was born with literally made him slower in favor of being able to take damage more readily.
Pavish was helping him get it sized and fixing the straps when Kryos felt a searing hit along his left wrist, near where the bit of pain from earlier when he was branded with the Guild name happened. He looked at it, and saw a pulsating, red tattoo—a circle with a hollow center, and an arrow pointing to his left. “What’s this?” Kryos asked.
Pavish cursed, then handed Kryos his shield from the ground. “A rift just opened. You have to go. Now.”