Melia woke up to the sound of Jessica attempting to be stealthy. She was not, but nobody else seemed to be waking up, so Melia wasn’t sure if it was her own sensitivity waking her up or if everybody else was simply too dead tired to care.
A glance towards the window told her the sun was rising, but it was still early. Curious, she got herself ready and followed Jessica out the door. They were about two doors down from the inn when the [Hunter] realized she had a companion.
“Jeez!” she jumped when she turned sharply and nearly kneed Melia in the face. Melia easily evaded the strike, waving up at the girl with a sheepish expression.
“Hi! I saw you leaving and I decided to follow. Should I not have?”
“It’s not like I’m doing a shady deal or anything,” Jessica huffed. “I’m just going down to the guild to try and sell this trash.”
She pulled out one of the necklaces she [Looted] from a [Gorblin] yesterday.
“It’ll be pretty boring.”
?
Boring was…one way to describe it. Melia could easily see how someone could get lost in the routine mundanity of “taking care of chores”. But she was not most people. Maybe it was because she was a gnome, or maybe it was because she never had the chance to get mired down by such things, but she found it fascinating.
Even the act of walking to the guild from the inn was interesting to her. There wasn’t a vast, sprawling sewer system beneath Lakeridge, so the city employed unconventional means to keep itself sanitary. A gigantic dwarven ram trundled past them while pulling a large, bulky wagon that seemed to be a fantasy mashup of street sweeper and septic tank. Fortunately, the industrial-strength barrel on the wagon bed had some sort of anti-smell runework built into its protection array, for which Melia was very grateful.
This early in the morning, the guild was actually bustling with people. For once, Melia saw it as it was intended to be, rather than resembling something closer to an out-of-the-way coffee shop. Jessica didn’t bother checking in with the quest board and headed straight to the counter.
“Good morning,” a peppy receptionist greeted them. “How can I help you?”
“I’d like to sell some monster loot,” Jessica said, placing her guild badge on the counter.
“Very good,” the man said after a quick [Inspection] of the badge. “[Appraiser] Wilhelmina is on duty this morning. She’s rank 3 and has successfully [Identified] up to 150 levels above her own. Depending on the items in question, bank transfers may be required; physical currency above 100 gold can be provided for an additional fee, and up to an hour may be required to source the change. Is this acceptable?”
“That’s fine,” Jessica nodded. “Nothing I have should be above rank 2.”
“Then please head down the hall, the…second door on the left should be free,” he said after checking his logs. “Please have a seat in the waiting room and Wilhelmina will be with you shortly.”
Jessica nodded to confirm and led them both down the hall. She opened the door for Melia, and they found themselves waiting in a cozy side office. Several chairs and a small couch filled the bulk of the room, a low coffee table between them all. A fireplace against the wall that was, thankfully, unlit. Even this early in the morning, the heat of summer was starting to assert itself.
Jessica flopped down onto the couch with a sigh and a look that told Melia the [Hunter] was well used to this routine. If this were her old world, Melia was sure Jessica would have pulled out a phone and started scrolling random sites. Melia turned her attention to the room at large.
Size-wise, it was only slightly larger than a doctor’s office, which Melia did her best not to think of, or perhaps a very generous janitor’s closet. Probably 15 feet on a side, it would have felt cramped with all the furniture if her entire party had joined them, but for Melia, it seemed quite roomy. It helped considerably that the couch and chairs were not the same sterile, lifeless plastic seating with green cushions she was used to. The couch, in particular, she would have called quaint, judging from the lightly frayed corners of the cushions and a hint of stuffing poking through the seams.
Melia wandered over to the fireplace, little more than a brick-lined square cutout in the wall as opposed to the ornate things with beautiful mantles and ironwork they saw inside the Magistrate’s office. This room was on the first floor, and the guild was three stories tall.
Curious, Melia walked inside the fireplace, heedless of the ashes puffing up clouds around her boots, and stared straight up the empty flue.
“Please, don’t destroy the guild,” Jessica begged. Melia turned around, still standing where the logs would be if there were any, and stared back into the room. Jessica was sitting on the couch, but she had her eyes closed. Melia didn’t know if Jessica had seen her exploring the chimney or if some sixth sense warned her of the possible complications small people introduced in spaces built for larger folk.
Before Melia could spout a cheeky retort, the door opened, admitting the second professional dwarf Melia had come to meet in Lakeridge.
“Thank ‘ee fer waitin’,” the woman, presumably the [Appraiser], said. She, too, had flaming red hair and Melia wondered if that particular strain was common in the dwarves of Lakeridge, or if perhaps she was related to Stoutfist. Her accent was thicker than the Magistrate's, but her eyes held more warmth, even if her words seemed brisk.
Until they landed on Melia.
Still standing in the fireplace.
“Ahh gnooome,” she practically growled in dwarven. Her eyes narrowed dangerously, but Melia had the good sense not to laugh. Part of her was surprised she understood the complex tongue, because dwarves seldom taught their language to outsiders. Melia, however, had maxed her reputation with the dwarves of Deepholme and raised her proficiency in dwarven language during her quest for lore.
Jessica looked lost, sitting up sharply at the harsh, throaty words. The dwarven woman seemed to come to her senses, had the decency to blush and cough lightly, and bowed to Jessica.
“Sorreh,” she said. “Name’s Wilhelmina Castercanon. Guild [Appraiser]. Ah’ve been told you have items ta sell?”
She spared a glance at Melia, taking in the exchange excitedly…still standing in the fireplace.
“Ach, you plannin’ on standin’ there all day? What sort of mischief you on about?”
“Ah, no mischief,” Melia did her best to smile innocently.
“Then get out of the fireplace, you daft toshck,” Wilhelmina hissed. Melia finally blinked and looked down, finding her [Midnight Reverie], as always, pristine.
“Sorry,” she grinned sheepishly, making her way to the couch next to Jessica. Wilhelmina sighed.
“Blasted gnomes. Mad bastards, tha’ lot of ‘em,” she grumbled under her breath.
Jessica looked down at Melia accusingly, as if saying, "This is all your fault.” Melia shrugged. It sure was.
“Ahem,” Wilhelmina cleared her throat. She was, at the very least, an excellent representative of the guild, doing her best to remain professional. “What cannae do fer yeh?”
“Not much, actually,” Jessica said, reaching into her inventory. She pulled out a simple drawstring sack and placed it on the table. “My party is new to Lakeridge, and we did some brief exploring yesterday. We took a quest to cull some [Gorblin] camps, which we already handed in, but at the time, the appraisal counter was already closed. I’m here to see if anything we picked up has any value. I know it’s mostly junk, but….”
“Ah, don’t sell yourself short,” Wilhelmina chuckled. Melia wondered if there was a joke in there, since Jessica was the tallest person in the room, but…she was probably being silly. “Coppers be coppers and gold be gold. You earn of tha’ first, you find yourself with a wee pile o’ the second.”
Melia smiled at the dwarven colloquialism. She supposed every culture had sayings about saving your pennies.
With an encouraging wave, she motioned for Jessica to empty the sack. As expected, a respectable pile of bone-white necklaces clattered onto the table.
“Ahhh,” Wilhelmina smiled. It was a genuine smile, too. Meia could tell the difference between someone who was genuinely expressing their joy and someone who put on a mask. This dwarf was definitely cut from a different cloth than the Magistrate.
“One of yeh has a [Lootin’] skill, aye?” she asked, picking up the closest necklace. She held it up with exuberance and Melia could see a finely detailed, miniaturized spell array form in front of her eye. An actual [Appraisal] spell! Much more thorough and informative than the common [Inspect].
“How can you tell?” Jessica asked, surprised. Judging from her tone and how she was staring at the necklace in the dwarf’s hands, Melia understood she couldn’t see the [Appraisal] itself. The spell lasted several seconds before Wilhelmina eventually turned it off.
“Subtle differences between tha’ goods,” the dwarf explained. “This here [Bone Effigy] wasn’t actually worn by a beastie. Long story short, even if yeh end up with somethin’ tha’ looks identical to the original, tha’ system creates an entirely different item when it loots it for ya. Just somethin’ ya pick up after decades in tha’ trade,” she chuckled. She gave Jessica a gentle smile before tallying up all the necklaces in the sack.
“Not that it affects the price much,” she admitted freely. “If anything, system loot is better. Higher quality, fewer faults, less chance fer a harvest to go wrong. Now,” she chuckled, holding up a hand, “Don’ get yer hopes up, lass. You said it at tha’ start: this is junk. It does have some small magical value, so we’ll take it off yer hands. Le’ me see…for this? I’ll give you 27 silver.”
Jessica’s eyebrows rose; she clearly wasn’t expecting such a high price. But, as Melia had come to understand, the guild dealt fairly with all of its members. They probably had learning pains in the beginning, but now that it had been established, the guild looked out for its own. A majority of adventurers weren’t exactly educated, but trying to swindle somebody who just risked their life killing deadly monsters wasn’t the sanest play.
Overall, the entire transaction fascinated Melia, from start to finish. She imagined herself, back in the game, waddling up to a random vendor npc. She’d click on them, which would open up an interface, and she’d drag whatever she wanted to sell from her inventory into the vendor space. Or simply shift-click on it.
She’d get paid, whatever that might be, and she’d be on her way.
If she were to convert that experience to real life, she doubted she’d come up with anything radically different from what she just saw.
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Wilhelmina was finalizing the sale, writing a receipt for Jessica to cash at the front desk, and gathering the necklaces for herself. That’s when something she said struck Melia, who was busy marveling over the mundanity of selling magical goods: these necklaces were, supposedly, magical.
They didn’t register as reagents the first time Melia scanned them herself, and she had access to practically every form of craft.
“What do you use them for?” she asked.
The [Appraiser] held up a necklace and [Appraised] it again.
“By themselves, not much,” she admitted. “But we grind ‘em up and use tha’ dust ta create a waterproofin’ reagent. Water alignment, that.”
Again, the thought of the “R” in [Gorblin] irked Melia, but her curiosity over a novel use of vendor trash won out. Leave it to the real world to show her how much she didn’t know and how much she still had to learn. She cast an [Identify] of her own.
?
[Bone Effigy]
?
Level: 150
Rarity: Common
Quality: 3 stars
?
A crude necklace carved from Bone. Worn by a weak monster. Can be sold.
?
Perhaps it was due to Melia’s familiarity with the game, but she saw nothing that suggested these necklaces should be anything other than vendor trash. But Wilhelmina, a professional [Appraiser] employed by the guild, was treating them like they were a staple in the town’s economy. Melia trusted the words of a woman whose career focused on assessing the value of various items, and if she said they were magical, they had to be magical.
On a whim, Melia decided to forgo the use of her system-assisted skill and take a look at the necklace with every sense available to her.
Though her eyes were already open, she “unsealed” them, so to speak, morphing them into her mixed form’s more draconic base. The whole room seemed to subtly shift as colors and shapes rearranged themselves, things unseen becoming visible, and the ambient magic in the air making itself known. She pushed through the vibrant miasma of mana and peered closely at the necklace, casting [Inspect] again.
?
[Bone Effigy]
?
Level: 150
Rarity: Common
Quality: 3 stars
?
A crude necklace carved from Bone. Worn by a weak monster. Can be sold. Contains traces of water, death, life, and earth-aspected mana. Must be thoroughly processed to be obtained in usable quantities.
?
Interesting. Melia didn’t have time to ponder the slight addition the system gave her, as a sharp cry filled the office.
“Dun kuurack!” Wilhelmina cursed. “Gods, woman! What in the name of Helena’s Hearth was that?”
Melia tilted her head as she looked questioningly at the dwarf.
“I was just [Inspecting] the necklace.”
“Aye, an’ were ya’ plannin’ on peekin’ in on tha whole guild with it? Just how much mana did ya put behind tha’? What are you made of, girlie?”
Melia felt the corners of her lips twitch reflexively.
“I’m a dra-”
“This is Melia,” Jessica interrupted with a strained smile. “Don’t mind her. She’s weird.”
Melia gave Jessica some side-eye, but she wasn’t actually annoyed. And it was good to know that people sensitive to magic would be able to tell when she was using a ton of it. It made sense, since she could do the same, especially if anybody tried casting [Inspect] on her. Most of the time, it felt like that weird tingle people get when they think somebody's watching them, except when she was in her real form and Jessica used it. At that moment, she had been keenly aware of exactly what was happening, though that could also have been due to her proximity to the spell cast.
“She’s kind of our group mentor. Of sorts. She often forgets her own strength.”
“Well, with strength like tha’, what’d you need to see me for?” Wilhelmina chuffed, ruffled but calm. Melia shrugged.
“I’d have recommended them come here anyway. I might be strong, but that doesn’t tell me everything. I didn’t know these had any uses; I only saw they were worth selling.”
“Gnomes,” Wilhelmina muttered under her breath. Jessica finished up their transaction and carefully excused them from the guild before Melia could cause any more problems. They collected their pay from the guild, and Melia could feel Jessica’s eyes following her as she bounced down the street. Strangely, she didn’t get a hostile, wary, or fearful feel from the [Hunter]. If anything, the brief glimpse of Jessica’s face that Melia caught spoke more toward minding an unruly child who was testing her patience. Truthfully, Melia could live with that. It was a much better alternative than her teammates living in constant fear of her.
?
Back at the inn, Jessica filled [Sunrise] in on the unexpected news that her new ability was starting to pay off. Nobody expected to net more than a handful of copper from the sack of necklaces, so putting over two dozen silver into the communal purse was a boon.
At first, Melia was confused why Jessica didn’t take it all for herself. She was glad the team had some sort of fund-sharing system set up, because loot, and money, always had a chance of wrecking relationships. The way they explained it to her, the loot was a group effort anyway, with contributions coming from everyone, and it generally worked out pretty evenly in the end. Members could generally pull from the group funds for certain things, so long as it was justified and brought up with the others first.
Some things, however, came out of individual pockets. Such as Ellesea’s upcoming trip back to Horizon.
“Already?” Melia asked. “But we just got here!”
Melia was curious why the [Mage] wasn’t wearing her standard robes, and was instead decked out in some fashionable yet functional leather pants that seemed to have an aversion to covering her groin. Until Melia realized Ellesea was wearing a second pair of pants underneath the leathers, which looked much softer and more comfortable. Chaps. That’s what they were called. Mostly used for riding. Alastair gave a slight chuckle from behind her.
“True, but we always knew this was coming. We all have responsibilities we still need to attend to outside of [Sunrise]. Or, maybe it’s better to say that adventuring isn’t our only priority. Ellesea more than the rest of us. And we’re all on board with that, or else we wouldn’t have joined up. We talked about this, Melia.”
“Yeah, that’s true, but…,” Melia did remember her chat with Al as they kept watch at night on the road. That wasn’t what was bugging her. “But if you take a carriage all the way back to Horizon, that’ll take days! And coming back, it’ll be, like, a whole week! Or more! And then you’d have to head straight back!”
“Which is why I won’t be taking a carriage,” Ellesea said gently from her seat on the couch. “I’ll be taking a gryphon.”
“Really?!” Melia perked up, her complaints completely forgotten. She had stars in her eyes, and she stared expectantly at Ellesea, as if she might sprout eagle wings and a lion’s body herself and fly away.
“Really,” Ellesea laughed. “Unless you were planning to fly me there?”
Melia paused, frozen from the jest. Clearly, Ellesea was teasing, but the more Melia thought about it, she really could…if they found a way to keep everybody safe on her back.
“I mean, I could.”
Ellesea paused mid laugh, as if suddenly remembering that, yes, Melia actually did have wings…as a gigantic dragon.
“Ah, perhaps another time,” Ellesea chuckled weakly. Melia let it go.
“So, can I go with you?”
It was Ellesea’s turn to look at her strangely.
“Why?”
“Why not? Gryphons are so cool! I’ve never been on a gryphon before!”
Her teammates gave her a flat stare and Melia realized, once again, she was supposedly over a hundred years old and once lived the lives of her original characters.
“I mean, it’s been so long. I’d love to see one up close!”
“Melia, that’s just…,” Jessica looked conflicted. “Weren’t you just complaining about her leaving, like two seconds ago?”
“Eh, so what? I’ve changed my mind. I want to ride a gryphon! Better yet, let’s all go!”
“Is this what it’s like to live with a whirlwind under your feet?” Y’cennia asked. Jessica shook her head.
“Melia, that’s such a waste of-.”
“I hope you’re not about to say money,” Melia cut her off. “I’m more than happy to pay for it. You couldn’t level without Ellesea here…okay, so Y’cennia could, but you and Al couldn’t. You’d need to wait for her to get back anyway. And now that I’m thinking about it, I should really take Cennie back to my vault to get the ingredients for her updated plan. That just leaves you and Al. Do you really want to sit around in Lakeridge while the rest of us spend a day in Horizon?”
Jessica looked stumped and argumentative, but Melia was insistent.
“You could show me around town! Like last time. There are so many more places I want to see! Like Penny’s. Oh, and we need to get Ellesea a replacement chatgem since hers broke.”
Melia stared up at Jessica with wide, eager eyes and watched as the girl’s resistance crumbled. Melia had been so caught up in the fact that she was living in a world so close to the game she knew and loved that she nearly forgot that there was so much more to life than grinding. Gathering strength, accruing power…those things were important, but they could wait. She had more than enough time now that she wasn’t stuck inside her bed, so she could take things slow.
It only took several more minutes to convince Alastair and Y’cennia to join them for a two-day trip back to Horizon. Melia actually thought this might be the perfect time to test out the Aetherline warping system, but she’d already talked up the idea of flying on a mythical creature in her head and she was too excited to see a real-life gryphon. Maybe on the return trip, they’d warp in.
?
Just like in the game, the town’s flight path was located in a tower on the edge of Lakeridge next to the bridge. There, the [Flight Master] had a whole pack of gryphons roosting in a tower.
…a pride of gryphons? An eyrie? They were part eagle and part lion. Maybe they had a different term? That didn’t really matter, since the first thing that Melia thought when she climbed to the top and saw one was how big it was.
Now, it didn’t hold a candle to her true form’s real size, but it was much bigger than an eagle or a lion had any right to be. It was much larger than a horse. In fact, all the horses Melia had seen in this world were larger than horses in her last one, but she wasn’t sure if that was because of her much smaller stature in this life, or if horses on Ebonvale were simply built different. Even the smallest pony she had seen, with the exception of all of the horses used by the halflings, was easily the size of a Clydesdale. She’d seen them once before, when her family had attended a parade, and they were pulling an old-timey brewery cart for a famous beer brand.
The gryphons roosting at the top of Lakeridge’s tower were twice that size, easily. Melia knew it wasn’t simply her imagination turning them into giants when the stablehand approached one to give it a good rubdown and barely came up to its flank. While they probably couldn’t swallow her whole in a single bite, they could probably break her in half and she’d go down in two gulps…if she wasn’t so overleveled.
Because of their size, gryphons could take multiple passengers at once. Another difference from the game, where players didn’t need to share a flying taxi when traveling from one place to another, and all the flying mounts spawned out of a single animated model that didn’t actually take off when they started flying.
Melia started creeping closer and closer to the nearest gryphon until it finally noticed her approach, snapping its head to the side so it could stare at her with a single, unblinking eye. Jessica quickly snatched her up before she could get gobbled up, which was, of course, an unfounded worry, but Melia appreciated her new vantage point. She started pointing out all the things she couldn’t see from the ground, talking Jessica’s ear off since she so willingly volunteered as tribute, all while Alastair took care of their travel plans.
Unlike traditional transport like coach buses or the Underground Tram, flying mounts didn’t really deal with set schedules for departures or arrivals. [Sunrise] bought 5 tickets, were shown to two mighty-looking golden gryphons, and, since they were all set to travel, were ready to depart. Traveling by gryphon would be the fastest method Melia and the team had used yet, if she didn’t count flying in her true form. Taking a carriage to the abbey would take several days, but riding a gryphon would see them all the way to the largest settlement in the Serenity Forest, Westshire, in a matter of hours. They could take a direct flight from Lakeridge to Horizon, but it would be too late in the day to leave today. They’d either have to come back first thing in the morning and leave at the crack of dawn, or take a layover at the garrison in Westshire. They chose the latter.
The only problem cropped up when it came to settling who went where.
Gryphons could easily hold two very burly adult males, and suggesting they take any less could be considered an insult to the proud bird-mammals. So it wasn’t really an issue of there being too much weight for two gryphons to handle. Alastair was the largest, so it made sense for only one other person to travel with him. Normally, that would be Jessica.
Again, not so much of a problem. Except that she was still carrying Melia, who was more than content to agree to these arrangements. The [Flight Master] assured them that, “One scrawny [Paladin] and a [Hunter] would feel weightless to his mounts, and a gnome is hardly the size of a saddlebag.”
Fortunately, Melia took no offense to this, especially after seeing some of the tackle being loaded onto the gryphons’ backs. The saddle alone was larger than she was.
Who did take issue was Ellesea. She’d been listening to Melia talk Jessica’s ear off for the last hour, and she was worried about missing out on story time once they got into the air. Nothing against Y’cennia, who she was more than happy to share a saddle with, but she didn’t want to be left out for the entire trip. Normally, they’d have to make do with only having themselves for company during the entire flight, since they couldn’t exactly shout at each other over the wind and whatever distance the gryphons flew at, but they had their chatgems. They could talk all they wanted without really raising their voices.
But Ellesea’s was broken in the dungeon.
So, after a little bickering and one potential meltdown avoided, Alastair mounted one gryphon with Jessica, while Y’cennia, Ellesea, and Melia were all lifted up into the saddle of the other.
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