First Job

Three months of training was a long time, the days of learning the rudiments of the new careers that you have chosen to embark on involved more of your attention than your career that you learned before, well this was true for some.  For others it was just an extension of your previous life, the life of a nomad and the life of a Ranger, for instance, varies little.  The training of a bard is not all songs and dance, there were many nights and days of practise learning the correct inflection to pitch your voice to mystically cast spells and worse, all while you fought off the most excruciating hangover! 

Going out and reconnecting with the fellows that you survived the night against the Kobolds was the only true respite that you had.  When you were told that you were ready to go out in the world and try your new skills out for real, you decided that it might be best to do so with those people.  Keylesh proved to be less a cat than her appearance suggested, she trudged through the rain as if it did not matter, granted she did have the hood of her cloak up and she later said that it had been oiled to prevent the water from penetrating.  She also said if her undercoat did not get wet, she would be fine.  The dwarf trudged alongside her, the rain plonking off his broad steel helmet and pauldrons.  He proclaimed that the rain does not bother him either, because he wears a thick wool coat under that keeps him warm in the wet.  Nerwen was not bothered by the rain, she said that she experienced about one hundred Springs filled with rain all outdoors, but still, she said she preferred the dry.  Tiarah, disliked the wet weather the most, but when she stepped inside, she whistled up a tune and waved over her body and the water all sloshed to the floor and was as dry as dry can be.  The Mercenary boards were the reason why you were here, jobs that required doing open to all mercenaries.  Keylesh stated that the jobs were more profitable than the jobs that the Builder’s Guild posted, with a little more risk and a lot less actual work.  So, here you were.  There were a lot of jobs but some of them were denoted with special marks.  Keylesh told you that these marks were earmarked for people that had advanced higher within the guild, they had paid their dues and so they were able to apply for the more profitable jobs.  She then said there was only one way to get higher up in the guild, and that was to work.  The jobs open for untried guildmembers was menial.  There were a lot of jobs as caravan guards, but they all had other duties attached to them, like kitchen duties and latrine digging; what got dug had to be filled in too.

The job that you settled on paid a little less but had no ancillary duties.  Straight up caravan guards, with side duties of night watch and ranging duties.  There were no bonuses attached to the job either.  Keylesh said that if the caravan encountered trouble there would be a bonus divided between all the guards and if the caravan arrived early at the main entrance of the Empire, there would be another bonus, but she said the caravan was often late in this weather and any bonus was divided with , upper guildsmen before the lower, but the lower guildsmen took the brunt of any penalty.  She seemed to be remarkably well informed, she shrugged and said that she had heard many complaints over the years.  So you all looked at the very short queue for the Archeological dig guards and headed over there, maybe if you did a good job here, you could get back here before the line advanced any and apply for the jobs as a full Guildsman.  It was a joke, but not much of a stretch; you had your orders and were out of the building before the first caravan had chosen its guards.  The weather had eased off some when you entered the streets, promising a dry day for your first real mercenary job.

Promises aside, the weather was inclement.  The first day the weather was just wet, light drizzle, but the second and the third day proved to be wetter.  The rain fell in sheets that made it hard to see five feet in front of you for five or ten minutes and then it intensified for a minute or so, before easing off a little.  There was too much to do that first couple of days to worry about the rain.  Three of you walked to either side of the caravan, every kilometer that it made through the land you figure you walked five.  The mercenary captain Haro Lightman, could not see any better than you, but he always seemed to know where you were and when you were not doing what you were supposed to be doing.  After the first day his directions became fewer and on the third day he stopped altogether.  There were four other guards hired on and he seemed to spend most of his time with them, keeping them in line.  Nerwen was luckier than you, she had a mount, a zebra from her Clan.  She had other duties, she had to range up and down the route that they were going to be taking and back where you had already passed.  Haro said that it was important to know what was ahead and to know if anything was following them, he also bade her not to get too far ahead, no more than half a kilometer.

The rain had made the land sloppy.  The trail was unbroken, so that was good, but Haro claimed that also meant that there were more hazards like gopher holes.  He directed you, except for Nerwen, what to look for, he said that if any of the horses stepped in one it would lame it for sure and the horse would have to be put down unless it could be healed.  There were a lot of things to look out for besides gophers, there were several beasties out here that could spell the end of any caravan especially one as lightly armed as this one.  Ankheg, Bullete, Giant Spiders, poisonous snakes and more, and all that was before the Kobolds started to raid.  He looked around and said under his breath, dragons too.  There were lots of dragons everywhere, not just the ones that had killed Dhewtudum, small ones could kill a caravan.  The caravan travelled slowly, but steadily; in the rain, over the uncertain terrain it made only 20 km.  Haro chose to reward your ability to follow orders by exempting you from latrine digging duties, but he expected you to take your turn at watch duties.  With the rain there was no fire so everyone ate dry rations and went to bed where they could.  Haro learned of Tiarah’s gifts and put her to work using her cantrips to dry out the horses and the supplies every night. 

The third day, the weather cleared, the air was crisp and there was a light touch of frost on all the blades of tall grass.  Haro consulted with Kris Wains, the expedition master and they agreed to head inland a bit and keep about a kilometer from the Trandle River.  It had swollen from the rain and the melt waters in the mountains and was looking like a bigger hazard than a navigational aid.  He then looked to you and said that there was going to be a few changes today.  He pointed to you four and said you will be heading a little ahead of the caravan.  The way will be drier and the caravan will move faster, but there will be more dangers and so he told Nerwen to range a little further and the three others to fan out ahead and walk at an easy pace about a hundred meters apart, and remember a gopher hole can maim a horse.  True to his prediction, Nerwen spotted a possible hazard in the way the caravan was looking to go.  She thought that it was a trapdoor spider and she summoned the others to fight or drive it off and mark its lair as a hazard to avoid.  The others arrived and they quickly got the better of the beast.  When Haro got closer he praised you, but warned that this was just a small one, they can get much bigger. 

Once again, the four of you moved out and looked for hazards.  The mountains appeared not much closer to you even though you had travelled for three days and it this point sixty kilometers.  You turned back to look where you had come, the smudge on the horizon was Trandle’s Stand, the lines of smoke did not appear to differentiate between the hundreds of sources.  The view towards the Trandle River was clear, beyond it there was the plume of smoke in the horizon that marked the Dragon’s Home, Dhewtudum.  The Spine of the World, the Empire of the Dwarves, was still snow covered white and gray, with their tops cloaked in clouds, but also in that direction was Nerwen, waving to get your attention, she seems to have seen something further up that will need your attention.  When you got level with her, she had dismounted and was examining the ground.  There was a small decomposed corpse there; ribs white and exposed and bits of putrid flesh still attached to the mess, crawling with maggots and such.  The skull was broken on its side where something had impacted it, but its appearance was clear, it was a kobold, dead three months.  Together you looked for more or what had killed it, and you quickly found not far away, just off the path the caravan was to follow a small collection of Halfling holes.  Nerwen went back to inform Haro, who in turn suggested that they investigate it for survivors but seemed to think that since there was no smoke, there was no hope. 

In the village there were many doors ajar on their hinges and a great many bones scattered on the ground in places to suggest that the halflings had fought and died on that night that you had fought and lived.  There was one door that was burnt, but still in place, the door jammed shut.  Jammed shut meant two things, whoever was inside was likely dead and the house was unlooted.  Keylesh broke a window and slipped into the house even though the window was about as big as her head.  The dwarf put his boot to the door and pushed hard; the door popped open.  The air was musty and had the tang of decay.  The darkness was no hinderance for the party.  The saw quickly there were two doors still shut and one open right before them.  Just on this side of the doorway there was a pile of small bodies, mostly a quarter the size of any of you.  There was no sign of maggots or flies here, the corpses were preserved by the cleanliness of the owner.  Keylesh approached first and say that many of them had been gnawed on.  By what it was not certain, but the larger ones were still mostly clothed and had some items of interest, she went immediately to these things as did the Dwarf who was right behinds her.  Both failed to notice the sound of thirty small feet on the floor behind the open door.  Nerwen, Eagle-Eyes saw a baleful glow from the room before them and warned of something coming forth.  It was big and it nearly filled the doorway and it was creepy between its eyes it had a maw filled with sharp tiny teeth and a swirl of tiny appendages.  She held her ground and cast a cantrip that lit the creature up, allowing everyone to see the beast clearly.  Keylesh stepped to the side and stabbed out with her short sword and then clawed it the beast with her claws.  The beast lunged out and scored a hit on the elf and she realised her mortal peril.  The Bard sang a clear note, after stepping back and scattered sand at it while holding a gentle note, the beast struggled against the spell and collapsed.  The party breathed a brief breath of relief as the dwarf approached and leveled his blunderbuss at where he thought its head must surly be and activated his weapon.  The tremendous sound resounded through the room and a splash of ichor bathed the room, the beast was not as mortally wounded as it appeared and lunged at the elf in a sudden attack.  The beast scored a blow against the tall, tall elf and she was injured.  She fired her bow and wounded it; the Bard mocked it to distract.  The beast was no distracted and it lunged out again catching the elf in its maw.  The Elf fell unconscious.  Keylesh seeing the peril, tried to remove her ally from being the Carrion Crawler’s next meal, she attacked it with her claws and grabbed Nerwen and threw her back, the beast’s tentacles wrapped around her bare arm and she felt the burning sensation as the poison entered her and the numbness quickly spread.  The dwarf hefted his two-handed axe forth and brought its blade down on it.  The fair Bard Tiarah, fought the fear she felt as she saw two of her companions fall, and tried to think of what she would do, pursing her lips she whispered words of horror that only the beast heard and the terror it felt manifested in it turning tail and fleeing from her and her easy fresh meals.  The dwarf raised its axe and felled the creature with a last blow that cut the horror in twain.  All her spells gone she bound the wounds of the Elf and she revived.  The Tabaxi shook off the effects of the poison and soon stood, and the Elf stoppered a healing potion and drank it down.  The party was shaken with its close call with death once more.

That night watch was very eventful.  The three moons made an appearance and so it was easy to see for many kilometers.  There was a small fire that allowed a warm meal and some hot tea, but this was put out before the two suns set.  The night sky was filled with hundred, nay, millions of tiny flying insects that blinked and flashed in the night.  Haro was not pleased with the diversion, he muttered under his breath and Nerwen caught what he said and nodded sagely.  When asked she said it was a piece of Grass Elf Plain wisdom:

Skies wet with rain,

Followed by Flies of Flame.

A word to the sane,

Warns of the Fliers that Maim.

She said that as often as not, the rains shepherded these insects and often there would be a tiny dragon sighted soon, but not always and not every rain.  The next day it rained, and for the rest of the week, it was not a heavy rain, but it was enough to make the journey uncomfortable.

On the sixth day the caravan reached a place where there was a hill.  The Elf said it was a hill, the Tabaxi did too.  The plains grass was growing nearly a foot or two above the rest of the plain.  In places it was.  Kris came forward and stated that the hill looked like a wall, long buried in the turf.  She pointed further off and pointed out tussocks of grass above the rest and a lone monolith poking above it all, by at least thirty cm.  Haro called a halt and asked you four to search the perimeter for anything, anything at all, he had been more wary since the night with the Fire Flies.

Nerwen noticed a bird flutter down in the middle of the ruin but thought that the Haro meant something else when he said anything.  Tiarah, wanted to see the bird up close and decided to get closer.  She thought that she saw a flash of blue when it landed.  What kind of vulture has bright blue plumage?  She approached without making a noise.  The critter was not a bird, it was reptilian like, large bat wings, nearly two meters tip to tip, and a long tail with a dangerous looking barb.  The wet weather was hissing on its back, causing little static arcs to cross between drops.  So fascinated, she waved for attention and bade the others to approach silently.  They all complied or tried to comply.  The Dwarf was not capable of stealth dressed in chainmail.  The thing took flight at his approach, like a cat startled from its prey.  The prey in question was a kobold, not a few days dead.  The method of death was unclear, because the little dragon kin, the small blue wyvern, had stripped most of the thick flesh and made a mess of the rest.  Nerwen was sticking a little further from the rest, and it was perhaps due to this that she warned the rest back as the little creatine was returning to fight for its repast.  You all scattered to get some room, but you were not fast enough, its claws racked the bard and its tail stinger narrowly missed.  The Elf slashed at it with her scimitar and the Cat with its claws, being careful to just scratch at its wings—hoping to take it alive.  The dwarf two handed it with his axe.  The beast scratched and wounded circled back for another pass.  The bard, smarting from nearly dying whispered words of anger that only it heard, and the beast wracked in pain and quickly rose high into the sky as far as it could go.  There it hovered and stalled and started a dive.  Nerwen drew her bow to her cheek and let loose a feathered missile which struck true.  The bard was peeved, no way was she going to be eaten today, she sang soothing words and cast sand at its direction as, the dwarf fired his crossbow nearly straight up, before thinking better of it.  The bird dodged the quarrel but fell into a relaxed tumble as the bard made it sleep.  The creature crashed into the earth, dead with a broken neck, and the quarrel fell harmlessly to the side. 

That evening as the suns were setting, the Yellow filling the sky with red colour that was reflected on the mountain peaks, the red sun followed soon after.  The light reflected from the snow-covered mountains lasted another few minutes, softening from orange to pink and then deep purple.  Haro approached.  He said that they had done well, and their service was beyond question.  He had a letter that he told them contained his recommendation that they become full members of the guild.  They are to proceed with haste back to town with the letter and one from Kris.  He explains that there is a lot of unharvested field stone in this ruin and suspects that a sizeable portion of the new town wall is now waiting to be excavated under our feet.  She needs more tools and several wains to load the stone on.  She also requires the stonecunning of the dwarf for a moment.  The dwarf looks over the monolith at the center of the ruin.  Kris tells him that she found it excavated like this and she also says she found a rune that looks dwarvish in origin.  He looks at it and agrees with her, it is dwarvish, and the stone is good granite, a stone not common in the mountains close to here.  He looks at it and says by the wear it appears to be over 2000 years old.  Kris, clucks under her breath.  It is older than that assuredly, there is no mention of a town or city in this location a thousand years before the founding of Awsland and Gutral Mastekeena, and they were founded two thousand years ago or more.  It appears we have a mystery here.  The dwarf thinks more than one, why would there be a dwarf city out of the mountain at all?

The journey to Trandle’s Stand is brief, it takes but four days to travel the distance that took 6 with the caravan, about 120 km.  The return journey will take longer, but the path will be better known.  In town you see there is a long line looking to be the next Guild Guardsman.  There is someone there who takes your letter and after an hour someone returns and tells you that since they have been to the ruin and have been recommended for this service by Captain Lightman, they would be pleased if you would return with the new caravan in a few days, once a few caravan carts can be freed from the merchants and if you would accept double pay of full guildsmen to take this journey.  He gives each of you a purse that contains your pay, half of what a guildsman would have made, but with a signing bonus for this next job, fifty gold piece chits, with a ten full ten-gold piece bars, unbroken.  You are earning Guild Wages now.

Keylesh gets home to here domicile.  There are two letters there for her.  One is from her master who has billed her a penalty for lost wages of a 2 gold chits per day, a total of 18 chits.  Not something to sneeze at a month ago, but now she feels that she can see the end of here servitude.  The second letter is something else . . ..