Finding only small prints near the cave, I begin toting my kills (that were gutted and cleaned last night) to my hand cart. Once the last is loaded and I’m certain I picked up everything I’d brought, I check if there is any interface for my new cave.
I would yes. Though I want to name it to have something to do with Trolls, that might make it more likely people come to raid the place. Hmm, something mildly threatening, but perhaps mysterious enough to make people even more wary? Bears are scary, and it rhymes with ‘lair’. Cosmic bear? Nah, that sounds ridiculous. The Umbra I think was listed as the opposite of Cosmic, so how about Umbral Bear Lair? I like it.
Perhaps you should query before making such decisions. Umbral Bears exist in my Universe, dear. I hope the consequences are amusing instead of disastrous.
What does that mean? Alaris!? Alaris!!
Nothing. She got her warning in, and that’s all she can do. Ugh, it’s frustrating to think that she is both being limited and teaching me a lesson.
//Umbral Bears: Primarily solitary creatures that work to become fully corporeal in the Cosmic plane in order to mate. These entities have not been viewed by any record keeping society you are aware of.
Then how was this record entered? Probably a mandatory catalogue for the administrators and developers to work with. Why do I keep doing this to myself.
The trip back to Marcrest is uneventful. The Watchmen inspect my eyes and make me show my teeth again, but otherwise don’t harass me. It helps that I stored my crossbows in my magical inventory. I half expected that they’d search my bag and confiscate some things, but I guess this shows that they aren’t bad guys, just deeply afraid of feral Trolls. I’ve seen what I can do while in
When I get to the Guild’s building, I see Melody’s bright, shiny persona at the receptionist’ desk.
“Zhantsa! You’re back. Did you end up getting that Matron?” She slides out from behind her desk and bounces over to me.
“Hey Melody, and yes. She and a few of her friends are in my cart outside.” I try not to look directly at her, her chipperness is almost blinding.
“Then bring it in, unless they’re still actively bleeding?”
I chuckle at that. I bet she has to clean up after a bunch of inconsiderate adventurers. “Nope, bone dry.”
“Great!”
She walks to the entry and opens the second door for me even though I’ve just got a hand cart—weird to bring it inside though.
“And you did this yourself?” She raises an eyebrow at me, having no basis for trust between us.
I smile, not taking it personally. I flex my arm and pat it with my other. “Troll things.” I say and then chomp my teeth with a big grin.
Her eyes widen and then she collects herself. “I wish you hadn’t said that. Now you have to get questioned and go through an inspection to get your ID.” She sighs, “Everyone can see you’re a Troll, but when you act like a person, people will overlook it. If you start acting fierce, people will treat you like a scourge.”
“I’m sorry, Melody. I just, well I try to use humor to deflect my discomfort. Troll jokes aren’t funny, gotcha.”
Her knowing smile is comforting, and some how forgiving. “No harm done, now lets get these to processing and get you paid.”
She leads me to a back room where a man is standing at one of a pair of long tables, skinning what looks like a deer. The older man with absolutely no hair on his head looks up from his work and stares at me.
“Hey Patrick, we’ve brought some wolves for you, and could you verify a matron for us?”
“Matron, eh? You finish that quest to root out that den in the hills?”
“I did, yes.”
He rummages through my stack and pulls a wolf out by the saber teeth. “Hmm. Teeth are worn, larger than average incisors.” He turns the carcass over and inspects the cavity. “Lower ribs have more bow than normal and the hips show evidence of widening over time. Yeah, I’d say this was a matron. Old one at that.”
He turns back to me, “You get a notification saying the den was gone?” I nod. “Good, you best get to the Tax and Land Management Office before anyone catches wind of this, ya ken?”
“Oh, that’s brilliant advice, thanks Patrick!” Melody says before looping an arm around mine and drawing me away from the weathered man.
“First we’re going to take that quest down, and I’ll mark you having completed it. Then we can finish your ID paperwork and after that, I can show you to the tax office. You’ll have to come back for that interview, but nothing I can do about that.”
She doesn’t wait for my reply and starts flitting about the place gesturing about with pens and stamps and such, over a stack of paperwork. “I just need you to sign that you completed this quest, sign for the bounty monies, and then sign that you have no ulterior motives for joining the Adventurer’s Guild.”
I do so, reading the last one because it actually had several pages of text instead of two invoices. Seems to be on the up and up. I sign the pages and she pushes over the coins she was counting as I was reading.
“Two gold and forty silver. It would have been more if we’d had the pelts, but I take it you have a deal with someone else?”
I nod, “I also like practicing my fieldcraft.”
“Aww, the newbies are so cute. Now come on, lets go register something.”
“What about the desk?”
“Don’t worry about that, I messaged Constance, she’ll take over for me. And if you were wondering, Patrick will put your cart by the stables out back when he’s finished.”
I was wondering. “Not to be rude, but why help me with this registration?”
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“Patrick wasn’t very quiet when he asked, and I have a feeling that you don’t have much experience with dealing with this level of bureaucracy.”
I laugh and pat the hand she’s still holding my arm with. “You are correct, as usual I’m finding, and thank you.”
She shrugs, “You seem like one of the good ones. And how could I not want to help? Your reason for wanting to join the guild is to be accepted in the community, not fame or riches, and you’ve got this ‘help an orphan’ energy about you.”
“I honestly have no idea if I have parents or not. I don’t remember past a year and a half ago and most of that I spent in a coma at the healing house.” Not a lie if it’s true.
“Oh, I’m so sorry.” She stops and wraps me in a hug. “I shouldn’t have teased about that.”
The hug feels good, and it’s making me feel like crying, because someone actually cares. Oof, I wonder if this world has therapists. I wrap an arm around and give her a quick hug back and a light pat on her shoulder when it’s time to separate me from this embarrassing display of emotion to an acquaintance.
“I guess you’ll just have to be my friend to make up for it.”
“Emotional blackmail is no way to make friends, missy,” She says sticking out her tongue and grabbing my arm again.
That wasn’t a no, I think, smiling to myself.
The building she leads me to is nothing special, seeming more like a large house than a government office. A short queue greets us as we walk in, so we take our spots at the back of it and wait.
“I’m going to see if they have the forms we need on the wall over there, be right back.” It takes twenty minutes for the next person to be seen. “Alright, so we have an Uncontested Property Claim form and newly discovered resource form. It is uncontested, yes?”
“Yep, the system asked me if I wanted to claim it and rename it. Excellent, there’s a spot on the form for that.” She pulls out a pen, hands it to me and shoves me toward the wooden rail where she found the paperwork.
The forms are tedious but easy enough to fill out. I don’t know the town’s address conventions, but a quick map opening and I can find it easy peasy. Oddly enough, I can now search my cave and the map zooms off to center it, showing me its location ID as well. Since its not in a city, the lair is just a set of numbers—probably this world’s version of coordinates.
Forty five minutes later, we’re in front of a government worker with a professional sneer. I hand him the paperwork.
He puts on a pair of spectacles to read it over. “No last name?”
“I was never given one.” He raises an eyebrow.
“Trolls don’t typically receive last names until they complete their coming of age trial. Zhantsa hasn’t had the opportunity to return to her people to do so yet.”
“In the event of a contest of claims, you will be responsible for backing her instead of her family.” The monotone of his voice is grating.
“The Adventurer’s Guild understands.”
The man stamps the paperwork and puts them aside. He brings up a few menus that seem opaque from this side, then eventually takes a new sheet of paper and with a blurred hand writes another document.
“If you wish to return and register known resources beside water, a sample will be required to substantiate the claim.” He advises while he extends to paper to me. I snag it and Melody ushers us out of the building.
The page in my hand is a fancy deed with a bunch of legalese on it that I don’t care to read, but it has my name on it, the lair on it, and verified by the official. I guess this is good?
“So, what are the benefits of this? Aside from people knowing that it’s my cave and where it is?”
“New girl, right, I just got so excited for you. Anyway, since it is in an uncontested area, it gives you the rights to the space above and below your current claim and future discover connected to that lair until any portion of the land above or below becomes contested. There’s also a minimum stand-off that counts as your land as well so you don’t have this hard to define snake-like plot. More importantly, if there are resources in your plot, if you register them, you automatically get a cut no matter who found or collected it.”
“That is good to know. Damn, Melody, you just saved me a bunch of time and probably money. I don’t know how I’ll repay you, but I’ll figure it out.”
She waves my comment off. “None of that. If you ever see me in the wild, we can grab lunch or something. If you really want to do something nice, redeem any quests or bounties while I’m working.” She beams widely.
Ahh, I see it now. She probably makes a bonus for handling a certain amount of quests, customers, etcetera. Softest catch to a deal I ever heard of.
I shake my head with a smile. “Sure, send me your schedule and I’ll do my best.”
She squeals and gives me a side hug. “We’re going to do great things, you and I.” She releases me and skips forward to the Guild hall where she gets to her desk well before me, looks at the paperwork and meets me again before I can reach said desk.
Another looped arm and she’s leading me to a staircase. She knocks at a door on the third floor and a muted voice tells us to enter.
“Melody, I did not expect to see you so soon. And Zhantsa is it?” He says it ‘Zansa,’ but no use commenting on it so I nod. “Then I suppose we should get this out of the way. Please sit.”
Settling into one of the chairs in front of me, I notice that Melody remains standing. That makes me feel uneasy.
“To the point, you’re a Troll and you’re asking for the Guild to vouch for you by signing up for an ID. As the Deputy Guildmaster, I have the authority to weigh in on exceptional circumstances. That said, I have some public safety questions for you.”
I nod, not feeling comfortable speaking under such scruitiny.
“Have you ever engaged with your
I nod. He stands and shuffles forward to sit on the edge of his desk and stares me in the eyeballs.
“What pulled you out of the blood frenzy?”
How does he know about this? “Uh, entrails. I was drained of energy, so I ate like half a wolf, and the frenzy wanted me to gorge on entrails. I vehemently refused. After a few minutes of that struggle, the hold on my mind snapped and it’s been easier to come out of it since. Yesterday, all it took was fur touching my tongue.” I shudder at the gross bloody wet dog taste.
He searches my eyes and asks me to smile big. I do so and then he pulls out a knife and I flinch. He draws it across the back of his forearm and blood wells up immediately—His eyes never leave mine. He waves his bloody arm at me and I lean back to get away from it, and end up falling over the back of the chair.
“That’s a reaction I’ve never seen. Is it an aversion to the blood?” Melody helps me up as I scowl at the man.
“No, blood smells sweet like copper and salt. It’s that blood is generally filthy and I don’t know what human diseases are communicable to Trolls.”
He snorts at that. “I wave blood at a troll and she’s worried about disease?” He almost falls off his desk with laughter.
“Why is he laughing so hard?” I say to Melody.
“Because he should be worried about you, and instead you’re worried about him. You really feel no draw to attack him?”
“I mean, maybe dowse him with a bucket of water, cold as possible, but other than that, no. I’ve only ever felt the frenzy when I’m in danger. I guess I don’t feel that I’m in imminent danger right now.”
“I am relieved to hear that, Zhantsa,” he stands and wipes a tear from his eye. “You see, without training it is supposedly rare to resist the urge to frenzy while raging, and even rarer to leave a frenzy without help.”
“I guess I really don’t like the idea of eating entrails.” I gag involuntarily. Melody titters, and the Deputy guffahs before pulling out a drawer and retrieving a card.
“When you take this, you are granting permission to have your status in the Guild show up beneath your name when people inspect you.”
I look down ponder if I have a problem with that.
“You can decline the status, but it is likely what every Watchman in the Empire will check first.”
“With that, I’m sold.” I grab the card and get a prompt.
I accept and feel a tingle shiver up my arm.
“Welcome to the Guild as our newest copper rank adventurer.”
“What, no confetti?” They look at me funny, “Confetti? Like pop. Flutter . . .” When I say pop and spready my hands apart, sparkles follow and my aether levels lower slightly. Did I just imbue, the air?! “That’s going to be fun at parties.” I can’t help but try it again, but this time the sparkles sound like popcorn popping and I can’t help but laugh about how ridiculous that is.
Melody scoops up my elbow and leads me out of the office. “No hysterics in the Deputy Guildmaster’s office.”
I’m still giggling as she pulls me away. Once we’re in the hall and she’s closed the door, Melody asks me, “Have you done that before?”
“Nope! Just picked a class this morning. Did not know I could do that.”
“Try not to perform unexpected magic in front of people who could destroy you, hm?”
“It wasn’t purpose,” I pout. Melody scoffs and leads me back to the front door.
“You have somewhere to stay?”
“I do. I just couldn’t return to town before dark last night.” She nods in understanding.
“You should be safe on your own property if that happens again. Monsters stay away from places that feel or smell owned.”
“Pee on everything, gotcha.”
She covers her mouth from the snort I get from her. I smile all the way back to Arming Arms.