“Shhhhhh, be quiet.” My friend, Satsu, an expert from the hunter’s guild, quietly whispered to me as she pointed to a small creature just a few meters ahead of us. I was a recent recruit, a novice by not only name but experience. Unlike Satsu, I didn’t know the first thing about hunting, killing, fighting or anything really for that matter. Satsu insisted she was the same once upon a time, and to be honest that was what kept me going. If it weren’t for her, I’m not sure I’d have followed my lust for adventure.
“What now?” I asked feverishly.
“Just a minute,” she barred me with her arm, her eye never leaving her target. “They’re skittish as hell. But if we can kill one,” she turned to me with a grin, “it’ll be proof enough that you’re not a novice.”
My eyes widened at the prospect. No longer a novice? You mean I wouldn’t have to scrounge around for every coin I could find? Fight desperately just to snag food for the day? I wouldn’t require someone to chaperone over me as I learned? I would actually have a job and take on duties to earn a living. I remember thinking that she was just trying to encourage me. That I was in over my head and working for the capitol of Siegardt just wasn’t feasible.
“I could get a job?” I said almost too loudly. Satsu took a soundless finger to her lips and I shrunk down to my knees at my own voice. She snapped back around to see the furry ball of fluff was still blissfully drinking from the stream. Satsu gestured to me and I removed my hands from my mouth to peer over the bush. She motioned the signal to me asking if I was ready. I motioned back ‘yes,’ and Satsu reached into the quiver hung across her back to nock an arrow across her bow. Satsu took aim at the creature making sure not to make a sound and nodded. It was time. Now or never, I needed to make sure this counted. I knew I could rely on Satsu, it was myself I was worried about.
I took up the machete I had been holding in my hand. It wasn’t much to look at, but even the scraps looked appealing to someone like me. I held the blade out in front of me as if I were challenging the creature. Then, just as Satsu reached the peak of her bowstring, I leapt.
* * *
Satsu proudly threw the dead critter up onto the counter, drawing the attention of the butcher from, well, butchering whatever it was he was hacking away at. Thick droplets of blood poured out of the critter’s mouth, a gruesome sight considering the only wound it suffered was from Satsu’s feathered arrow. Satsu tucked some of her long, auburn hair behind her ears and grinned.
“Three hundred,” she demanded.
The gruff man behind the counter scoffed and wiped his hands against his apron.
“You’ll be lucky to get two-fifty,” he snapped back. “I ain’t buying for more than that, Satsu. I ain’t filled with riches.”
“I know you make more money than you’re letting on. I’m sure you’re not also in the business of conning. Three-hundred.”
“And it seems you ain’t in the business of hunting,” he said. Satsu and Rosenburg were on near familial terms at this point and he knew exactly how to wound her pride. “These little critters ain’t worth much of late.” Rosenburg pinched the ear of the luna and turned it over. “See here, you didn’t get a great shot either. You hit the stomach. That’s gonna make a mess of the innards. Had your arrow hit the heart or the lungs, then maybe I could settle for two-eighty. But three-hundred is simply not happening.”
“Fine.” Satsu gripped the animal by its long ears and pulled it away to hang at her side. “I guess I’ll continue my business elsewhere.”
The old man shrugged.
“Don’t bother me any. See you another time then, Satsu.”
Satsu turned on her heel, her nose up in the air. I’d seen it time and time again. Satsu was a great hunter, one of the best in fact. She had pride, her dexterity and agility were on point, and many of the bows she used were hand-made. The thing is though…
“Fine!”
She wasn’t very good at haggling.
“C’mon, Satsu. It wasn’t that bad. At least you got two-sixty,” I said as I took a bite out of my griplo burger.
“Yeah, yeah,” she sighed.
I didn’t want to seem too excited about graduating from novice-hood. It’s true that we didn’t get as much for the luna as we originally hoped. In truth, I knew we wouldn’t. Satsu was no match for Rosenburg and he knew it. Her desperation would always get the better of her and she was a bit impatient when it came to getting what she wanted. I’m just glad Rosenburg was a kinder soul than the other merchants. Many would have you believe the merchant’s guild is filled with honest would-be capitalists who simply wanna make a quick buck in the world, but it couldn’t be any further from the truth. Most of them would leave you for dead if it meant picking the clothes off your skin.
To put it simply—I was glad we knew Rosenburg, but my impatience was beginning to get the best of me. It had been weeks since I started my novice training and even though I wasn’t sure which job I wanted to dedicate myself to, I was excited to be part of the adventurer’s guild.
“Satsu?”
“Yes?” She grumbled between bites of her burger.
“Do you think the luna will be enough to graduate me?”
Satsu gulped down the last bite, satisfied, then turned to me. I didn’t like it when she did that. The separation in years became far more apparent whenever she would lock eyes with me, and me being the sixteen-year-old boy I was, I was often defeated by what sat below her eyes.
“Without a doubt.” Her smile did greater wonders for me than any part of her body. It was cocky and strong in her own feminine way and not much else could more intoxicating. “Rosenburg may be a smut, but I can at least say that most novices don’t slay lunas by the time they graduate. Way too rare, skittish, hard to catch, harder to track, that sorta thing. So don’t worry yourself, you got this.”
And just like that, my courage resurfaced.
* * *
The old man stroke his beard as he perused over the handwritten scroll Satsu gave him. For as impulsive, wild, and pushy as she was, her penmanship had the appeal of a sophisticated, well-learned woman with an incredible talent for word choice.
Gellick spent time, way more time on it than I thought he would. It was only five paragraphs, but somehow he had managed to spend ten minutes already. I knew he was a quick study, so maybe he was looking for something else on the document. Something that would show I was lying or somehow disprove her account of the events. Eventually though, he looked up from the scroll, and rolling it back up, he handed it to Satsu and nodded happily.
“I don’t see a problem here. Ro has been making progress I see. Still stumbling through like a deer through a sticker patch, but I don’t see why we can’t accept it.” Gellick looked to me and folded sweaty arms. No doubt the man had been working the smith up until we arrived. “I ain’t much for ceremony, so I’ll put it like this. Congratulations, Ro. You’re no longer a novice. You are now a fully-fledged adventurer. From this point on your decisions are your own responsibility. No one will take the fall for you,” he eyes Satsu for a moment, “not even Satsu. Is that understood?”
“Yes!” I stood erect like a statue and saluted. Looking back on it, that was pretty embarrassing. But Gellick was a good guy and laughed like an old dwarf.
“Geh ha haha! Boy’s rigid as a tower. Loosen up boy, or you won’t last a week.”
“R-right.”
Gellick walked away and stood before a bookcase. Wedged in between them was a flattened scroll. The old smith unfolded the piece of paper, looked it over and folded it back up.
“Here,” he handed the paper to me, “you’ll need this to get a job. Remember that once you pick a job you’re stuck with it. There aren’t many exceptions to the rule. You’re already an adventure, so take time to think it over and don’t be brash about your decision, ya hear?”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
“Don’t mention it,” he waved it away as if the apology carried its own stink, “with Satsu behind you it was only a matter of time anyways.”
He winked at her and she rolled her eyes.
“Yeah, yeah. Thanks, Gellick,” said Satsu. No doubt she was eager to leave. Eager to teach. For what reason I don’t quite know. There were just as many unequally talented novices like me who couldn’t throw a knife, much less hold it properly. Yet here she was, guiding me along like a lonely ugly duckling.
Satsu put her hands on my shoulders and led me out of the novice’s hall and onto the cobblestone street of Giffen. Her soft, milky-white hands sent a chill down my spine, my boyish instincts taking hold of me. I felt my face flush and was grateful she couldn’t see the trembling fear plastered on my face.
“Open up the letter.”
“Ah, that’s right.” I had honestly forgotten with Satsu behind me. I opened up the letter just as Gellick had and read over the letter.
For the one who receives this letter.
The one bearing this letter has full authority and by right of the novice’s hall and adventurer’s guild, we do hereby proclaim that Ro, a boy of sixteen summers, is now fit to carry a job and provide his assistance to society. If one such person, man or woman, claims otherwise, may they challenge Gellick of the Blacksmith’s Guild.
Gellick
The words weren’t particularly impressive. Gellick was after all a blacksmith. Not quite the wordsmith Satsu was. But it was here, in my hands. Finally within my grasp I could move forward and away from novicehood and take up a job. I’d have to be careful in my selection. Just as Gellick advised. Little room for doubt existed within me. I knew that whatever job I picked I would jump in with both feet. I folded the paper back up and slipped it into the back pocket of my trousers. The first and most important hurdle had finally been conquered.
I was now an adventurer.
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