“So you see,” Professor Thanolin lectured to his class, “While Talloni have fur, warm blood, and give live birth they are not mammals. They lack the one thing that truly defines a mammal, the production of milk!”
This was not new to me as I’d taken a class like this early on in school. Most children did, a way to understand fellow compatibles. There were other classes that went onto the known types of alien life and there makeup, and more that went into known kinds of artificial beings. This though was interesting as it was simply talking about beings from a world and trying to figure out how they fit together.
“Now take a good look at your classmate here. Morphology wise Talloni have hair in common with humans, snouts in common with paracrest, and feet like that of a minotaur. Some even go so far as to say they look like horses on two legs but except for the hair and tails they are not paricularly horse like to me.”
A bit of a chuckle went up through the students. I gathered an idea of what a horse might look like in my mind from that description, having never seen one myself. I had the impression they were much bigger than a talloni though.
“They have the tallest ears of the main races of Dacathus as well. I’ve only met one being with taller ears and thankfully he has chosen to visit our class tonight for an audit” And with that the professor pointed right at me. I cringed slightly but got to my feet. “Come down here please Mr. Aness.”
I really didn’t have a choice though my stomach still felt like it was pulling in on itself as I hopped down there. The teacher dismissed the talloni student back to their seat as I stood nervously in his place.
“Now Mr. Aness, what did you say your species was called?”
“Uh, I am a zagariean.” I glanced at him for a moment before turning my eyes to look over the crowd of students.
“A zagariean. First of your kind to make it to Dacathus it would seem. Now class, let us start with questions. What classification would you say your people belong to?” While he addressed this to the class he actually turned to me in the end. I waited a moment to see if anyone else would answer before I did.
“I’m a mammal.” I said at last.
“Excellent. Now let us examine your morphology! You have dark shaggy fur on your head and face, a bit like a kethi, though more than just a beard. Your ears are even taller than that of a talloni. Your pupils are vertical like that of a hillsec. Your snout is long and more pointed than most people, almost wolf-like if I were to ascribe it to a known animal.” He listed while I fidgeted a little. I was actually surprised to hear the name kethi. I knew of them, an empathic desert dwelling people who had a few colonies with my own. I’d never met one but I’d seen pictures before, and indeed my own face and head fur was similar in density to the beards that covered their faces.
“In addition, you have the unusual of legs. They go back further than that of a Talloni and remind me more of a rabbit. Your tail is slightly shorter than that of a paracrest though. Now if you do not mind, please open your mouth so we can see your teeth.”
I did as commanded, still feeling a bit awkward about all this. It was educational though, even for me.
“Ah yes, a nice mix, not unlike humans and minotaurs. A few more sharp ones, leading me to assume you lean heavily on meat but you also have strong back teeth capable of taking on nuts and vegetables.” Of course he had seen me eat but he was explaining it a bit more scientifically to his students.
“Yes sir, we are meat-heavy omnivorous. I can eat most things anyone else can but we don’t digest roots and bulbs well”
The professor bobbed his whole body. “So you see class, you can learn a lot from looking at each other. My next assumptions about the zagarieans from looking at young Mr. Aness here is that they are fast on their feet when not being forced to walk. On an open field I am guessing with those legs of yours you can bound faster than a talloni, and possibly out pace a selvaryn.”
That surprised me and I glanced around the room again. I didn’t see one here. Selvaryns were also known to me. I’d gone to school with two. They had to wear blunt caps on their special raised sickle claw toe. It was a requirement since poor impulse control of the young mixed with the need to kick something (a trait we shared with them and the talloni as well) could turn a few bruises to a lethal puncture wound. There were not any here but apparently they were in the world.
“I do not think I could outrun one of them professor” The two at school had been the fastest of any of my classmates, proving it during our sports and exercise period. They could run faster than a borgarian, another saurian class race that had members on my world. I wondered even as Thanolin’s head turned slightly for a second if they were here somewhere too. They didn’t seem to be in Dacathus. The only saurian class race I had seen here was the Paracrest, and they had much more feathers than selvaryns and borgarians back home.
The Aulterun’s head righted itself quickly, his feathers ruffling as he continued on. “Well, I would still say you are fast from the look of you. Now why don’t you go return to your seat Mr. Aness and we will continue on with the lecture.”
It wasn’t until I rose in the morning that I got to know what was interesting Thanolin. He was there in the kitchen, tea pot heating on the fire as I entered the main living area. “Oh good, you awoke before this was ready.” He hooted, gesturing me over with a wing.
“Good morning professor. I thought you would have gone to bed already at this hour.”
“Soon soon my boy. I didn’t want to interrupt my class last night to talk to you about something. Please sit, I will bring you some tea to help you finish waking.”
I did as he asked, wondering if I had done something wrong last night. He soon came walking into the eating area with a steaming cup and placed it before me.
“So, you have met a selvaryn before?” His head tilted as I picked up my cup.
“Uh, yes. There were two in my year during my basic schooling.”
“Amazing. I have heard about them. They, and most saurian types, tend to live far in the north. Only a few like the paracrest and the gnark are known this far south. So they exist where you come from?”
“Yes, and the gnark but I have never met one of those, but they come from the same place as the selvaryn. Professor, have you heard of a species called the org?”
His head tilted the other way and I relaxed a bit. Of course if orgs were known to this world they might have said I had a head like one. That had been a common insult from the two selvaryns I had known, though it was more teasing than meanness. That didn’t mean there weren’t any hiding somewhere in the north, controlling people there. That was what selvaryn history was full of, being under the control of another race. One who could reach into their minds and puppet them as needed. Something they’d carried with them even to other worlds.
“Never. Something else you know of?”
“Another race from there. I just thought, well, was worried if they were here too. But I guess not or you’d have said I had an org head not, what was the race? A wolf?”
“Wolves are animals, but I take it you are not asking about a beast. There are smaller more feathery creatures that look a lot like selvaryns. Often just called raptors. They live in flocks along the mountains, plains and savannas. Bigger versions of the gnarks as well, but full of feathers. Are orgs a kind of wolf perhaps? Oh, yes, you do not seem to know what that is.”
When he described the predator I shook my head. “No. Never met an org but we often had classes that discussed old culture and history of immigrant races that existed in our years. So we had ones on talloni, selvaryn and borgarians. We also had classes on the most common races our own people had mixed in with elsewhere and the newest race we were aware of, the humans. Kethi were also in that mixed discussion class.”
“How fascinating elsewhere must be! But you have never heard of people like me? Like Bibbel?”
“No sir.” I actually felt a little bad for some reason. Like I was letting him down for not knowing something.
———————
Raven enjoyed a berry-filled bun from her new favorite bakery as she stepped through the doors of the adventurer guild. It danced between being sweet and tart as she savored the pastry, stopping only as she spotted the argument over by the clerk’s desk. The smell coming off of them nearly caused her to stop eating.
She backed up to the doors where the air was a bit fresher, heading the duo argue with the clerk.
“We need hazard pay! And a cleaning stipend!” He insisted, but the clerk behind the desk, an annoyed looking civith, just glared at him.
“It was your choice to continue to track the creature in through the sewer. You were also being paid to produce an intact pelt and not just the head. You did not fulfill the requirements and so not only are you not being paid in full but you get no extras.”
The other man, a minotaur, snorted menacingly down at the woman behind the desk. “Lady, we were told this creature needed dealing with and that part recovery was optional, not conditional. We deserve the full payment. And it was suggested that it might be camping in the sewers. The city wanted it dead as it was a menace to pets and small children. We tracked it. We killed it.”
“Yea.” His human companion chimed in, “We need to be paid!”
It was like watching a cart collision. Raven wanted to go back outside but she couldn’t look away as she finished her bun. Hopefully the sewer stench wouldn’t cause her to lose the thing.
Another human sidled up beside her, eyes fixed on the argument as well. “Those two are idiots if they think Sella is going to budge on this matter.”
It was the same human man Raven had seen the other day in front of her at the desk. “Are those two always so angry?”
“Naw, I think it’s the sewer. No one in their right mind wants to do a sewer job unless they are desperate. The guild doesn’t always want to play for cleaning or the bath house.”
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
Raven was surprised to hear about a bath house. She’d heard of them before but her home town was too small to support one and Terath was on the edge of the desert where water was a precious commodity. She wondered if she would have time for a visit but the human kept talking.
“Name’s Jace by the way. Jace Woodwin.”
“Raven.” She shook his hand, wincing as she heard a crack over by the desk. The minotaur had just smashed his meaty hands into it. This was followed by a shriek from the clerk, one of anger.
“Get out this instant! Now you get no pay at all for this job and are banned for two weeks!” She yelled at them.
Every other adventurer in the room reacted at once, getting ready to pull weapons or spells. Even Raven, who had her staff slung onto her back. Thankfully all she needed to do was step aside as the two disgraced and smelly adventurers left.
“That doesn’t happen here every day.” Jace shook his head, brown hair flopping over into his eyes as he moved, “New in town I take it?”
“Mostly visiting from Terath.” Her sail relaxed as well, even as she heard the clerk clucking about the damage to the desk. The minotaur had apparently dented it. “I haven't decided if I want to move here or not.”
“Explains why I hadn’t seen you before the other day. Well, we are much nicer down here than in the desert. More food, more rain.” He chuckled a little. “Never really been up there myself. What is the desert like anyway?”
They moved off to a table as they continued to talk, taking seats on the benches across from each other. “Well, hot and dry for the desert itself. Except at night where it can get cold enough to freeze your feathers off. I partner with a chelkren, and he often goes into a torpor at night if we’re in the desert. The city is fine, it retains enough heat to keep warm, sometimes too much. The streets all over are much like they are here in this ward, smooth and even. We have plenty of hillsec residents up there so it keeps them from scraping their bellies.”
“Well we have the Scholar Ward here, best college in the east. Anyone not close to Varcalis comes here to study instead. Well, unless they are south enough for New Rome. But that is well out of guild controlled areas. At least the city state has guild outposts. I don’t think the southern empire has any adventurer guilds.”
“Dacathus is the most south I’ve traveled. I’ve been on quests around Terath for the most part. I think it is time for a change but first I brought something down for the scholar ward to look at for me. A scroll too delicate for our own [Chronicler] to deal with but the library has someone who will. I hope it will be useful for one last quest up north. Then I can decide if I really want to move.”
“Do you have someone who is keeping you in Terath?”
“Not in that sense. I’ve got a partner, the chelkren I mentioned. He’s injured right now and I’m not sure he’d want to leave the city. I want to at least make sure he’s back on his feet and back to what he loves to do.”
Jace looked like he was about to say something else before biting his lip. He looked away for a moment, eyes cast back towards the reception desk before finally back to Raven. “You already took one quest here right? I thought I saw you at the board.”
“Yes. A simple pest elimination quest. Just something to do. Didn’t pay much.”
“Yea, those aren’t really my thing. Not great with small skittering things.”
“Oh? What is your skill set anyway?”
He chuckled, cheeks showing a bit of scarlet. “Well, I tinker. I guess I can also unlock doors if need be but mostly I like building and changing small things. Not considered an asset by most in the guild. I’ve been asked before why I don’t join with an engineering guild but I like the adventure here. The idea of not knowing what I might be doing tomorrow. I don’t want to help design new waterwheels or better wagons.”
“Adventuring can pay pretty good if you get the right quest.” Raven added, “If you get ones that involve ruins or bandits at any rate.”
“I would love to get in on one of those but no party wants to take me on. They usually already have someone who can deal with traps and locks and want someone good at taking or causing damage.”
Now it was Raven’s turn to be silent for a moment, her own attention drifting to the door as a pair of talloni came in carrying tool bags and heading straight towards the reception desk. “Well, I can’t guarantee for how long but in the Terath guild it is just Mazen and myself. Neither of us can deal with traps and locks. It’s more than a week by carriage to get there though.”
“Maybe it’s a sign for you to come down to this guild. Talk your partner into it. There are plenty of other chelkrens around here, even the desert type.”
“Maybe. It won’t hurt to ask him.”
————
I brought forth my trusty note pad I used for library work. The paper was light but hardy. I just had to be careful not to smudge. Tick was happy to let me make the first copy because of my [Perfect Transcription] skill, but that didn’t account for charcoal’s nature. But I had a steady hand and we had worked out where I was to gently place the page after it was done as not to have other things laid on top of them.
~Ready?~ she asked me, the jar that I had brought down the other day already open. She had tools in two of her hands while the other pair held the jar steady. She also had skills that aided in keeping fragile scrolls from crumbling during the extraction processes.
“Ready” I told her, watching the terrisian work. Having four hands clearly made this task so much easier.
The scroll came out gently, eased by the tools. It was rolled into a tube for easy keeping in that jar. Been there for some time, Tick had told me before we had gotten started. I knew that even if the scroll was written in a different script I’d be able to copy it down with my skill so I got ready as she carefully unrolled it.
The parchment crackled but stayed intact. As she opened it all the way I started to copy. I didn’t even read it over as I did, allowing my skill to take over because of the delicate work. “Done!” I told her once I was finished, setting the charcoal aside and placing the notepad down safely. This was only the first copy, allowing Tick to putt he scroll safely away in the jar once more so it wouldn’t fall apart on us.
~Alright. I will let you make an ink copy if you feel you are ready. Your hands are steady enough for the job~
“Thanks. Marigold said this is more important than checking for misplaced books. Told me to take my time.” I didn’t really need the extra time thanks for the transcription skill but I wanted to actually read what I was writing. I hadn’t paid attention to the substance in my skill focus, just making sure each letter was the same as the scroll. But now I read it as I worked on a better paper, ink quill in hand.
‘We thought it was just a chunk of crystal, a beautiful bit of quartz in the mine. But somehow it affected our minds. First Jojo, then Balty. They were driven mad. I saw Balty in the depths of the mind. It was like crystals were growing on his skin. He was laughing. We got sealed in down here, too much risk of infection. A crystal, infecting people. Doesn’t make sense. We sealed the lower tunnels best we could where the infected had dragged their kills but we’re trapped in here. There’s no food, no water left. We’re not going to make it. I leave this in case we get dug up some day. Please, do not go further. Find a way to seal the tunnels completely.’
I shivered a little after I finished the ink copy. The content of the scroll was troubling. And a crystal? That made me think of Thanolin. The professor had said he loved gems. Maybe he had some idea. “Should I make another ink copy while this dries or tell Marigold that the work is complete.”
~You have your note copy. We can make another for the library records later. This will be ready for the client as soon as it dries.~ Tick dismissed me from the room, back on one of the books that needed rebinding as I headed back up the stairs.
The librarian was perched behind her desk, sitting up on her hind legs as she watched for people coming and going. “That adventurer’s commission is done.” I told her.
“Ah good. Are you up for a field trip? We have not had many students in today so nothing for you to shelve at the moment and it will keep me from ordering up a messenger. Can you take a message to the adventurer’s guild? The guild ward is on the west side of the city and the guild itself is hard to miss. It’s on the main road with swords on the awning. Tell them that the library has finished work on the request for Raven of Terath and they will do the rest.”
After what I had read of the scroll I hoped she was there. I didn’t know how the adventurer guild worked but the information spoke of danger and the need to be sealed. It was no different then when a settlement on a world where civilization died out long before came across well sealed ruins only to get the translation about radioactive material inside. It felt like something that needed to be rushed to me so I was happy to go bounding down the street to find this guild.
It wasn’t hard to locate. I spotted a pair of talloni carrying a long plank of wood through the doors as I slowed down to a hop. I’d never been to this side of the city before. The scholar district was nice but this place was even better cared for. Smooth streets, bright paint, less construction noises. Most of the noise came from guild chatter as the doors opened to admit the two talloni. I got myself in before the doors to close again.
I breathed heavily, my noise picking up a faint whiff of a foul oder, but mostly the bodies of various races. It wasn’t too different from a tavern really, only with more sweat and a little blood rather than food smells.
As I looked around at the cluster of tables I saw that the wood was being placed over the reception area. A repair job of some kind. Another civith was back there, balanced on a stool to be in the same eye line as the two talloni while directing them. I stood back a few paces and waved at her to get her attention.
The small woman’s eyes narrowed at me. “You don’t look like a member of the guild, what is your business here?”
I swallowed, feeling nervous at the being who was almost half my size. “Well, I’m here with a message from the library. We just finished a commission for a Raven out of Terath. Was told to let your guild know.”
The woman clucked her tongue and turned around to the shelf at her back. She rummaged and picked up a quill. “Fine, we will let her know.”
“It’s, uh, pretty urgent. Please, can you note that?”
The woman was already writing something down as she turned to face me. “We will let her know.” She said in a sever tone. “Now you should hurry on back to the library, we are in the middle of something here.”
From the look on the woman’s face I didn’t think she knew how much of a priority it was. But, well, this wasn’t my guild. Maybe everyone here had some kind of dire quest they were getting ready for. I didn’t think I could argue with her so I just flattened my ears and left.
—————————
Raven had taken a small job with Jace, mostly to see how they worked together. She didn’t need the money so after they had finished, with her tired and gritty, she’d just headed back to the inn and let him take up reward. This was why she didn’t get the message till the next day.
The clerk never told her it was urgent or she might have run all the way to the library. Instead, she just wondered upon the price they would ask. She had worried the job might take longer but either there had been less of a backlog or it had been easy.
When she got to the desk with the civith librarian behind it she waited, nodding her head as the price for the commission was explained to her. Not bad, she had enough for it and for passage home. However after she received the crisply printed paper with the content of the scroll written on it her sail seized up and her stomach dropped.
The trip back would be too late! She needed to let her guild know now. She looked back at the desk, her sail still tight and now feeling hot. “I… I need to send a message right away. Where is the messaging service?”
The civith’s eyes widen in alarm. “Well, Unlimited Correspondence is down that way a few streets over. Hard to miss with the pigeon carved onto the sign.”
Raven turned and bolted, nearly colliding with the strange man she’d seen here before. He managed to leap out of the way in time as she just kept going. She hoped she wasn’t too late. She didn’t know when the expedition was to begin. They could have even left right after she did for all she knew.
She found the building quickly, only slowing as she moved in through the front door. There wasn’t much of a line at this time of day, only two clerks handling the desk as people came with letters to send. Two aulteruns handled the desk, one with white feathers and the other brown with black spots.
Raven tried to catch her breath, sail finally flexing back against her neck as she waited for the person in front of her to finish. If she had been Mazen she’d have pushed past everyone to demand service now given the urgency. But in her experience doing so, even for a good reason, made people cranky and less likely to help.
Her turn came up soon enough. The black eyes of the brown bird person in front of her seemed to reflect the lights of the room. “What can I do for you today?”
“I have a priority message for the Adventuring Guild of Terath.” She told them, setting the scroll copy on the desk as she reached for her money bag.
“Ah, priority.” The aulterun hooted, “Let’s see…” They consulted a list, their head bobbing as they read, “Yes. An instant message can be sent. Does this need sending right now?”
Raven swallowed, “Yes, please. Matter of life and death.”
“Oh dear. I’m sorry to say that is quiet expensive but doable. Is this here the content of the message?” They gestured at the document Raven had placed on the desk.
“Yes. But it needs to start with ‘This was the scroll from the mine’.”
“Each words adds to the price. Let me see..” The quote of it nearly made Raven collapse. This would wipe her out. She wouldn’t even be able to afford food. But it needed to be sent. If they hadn’t left yet it would stop them. If they had, well, she didn’t know what to do then.
