CH13- Theras perspective

Thera woke up unhappy. Frankly she had been angry since the previous night, having been forced into partying with some random man just because she didn’t have anyone else to adventure with at the moment. No matter how much gratitude she had for her uncle or how much she respected his opinion she would still much rather be going out by herself until she found a real adventurer she could work with. Still she would need staves, and if this was how she was going to get them then so be it. She would just treat it as if she were adventuring alone and hope whatever his name was could manage himself.

She ate a quick breakfast with her aunt as the sun was rising and walked over to Falk’s shop, prepared to meet with her temporary companion, but saw nobody waiting outside so she went in.

Her uncle was sweeping and dusting the place, as he always did to try and keep it presentable. “Good morning Uncle, where’s this boy I’m stuck with?” She couldn’t keep the annoyance from her voice.

“Mornin’ Thera, he’s just behind the counter. Wake him up and you can be on your way.”

“What?” She wasn’t immediately sure what he meant by that but walked around the counter to see him asleep on the floor, one light blanket over him and another rolled under his head.

“You can’t be serious.”

“Nearly stepped on him myself when I got in, but it looked like he had had a long night. Figured I’d let the brat relax a bit before you got here.”

She gave a loud sigh, even more unimpressed than she had been previously, and grabbed the staff Falk had given her yesterday. It was a bit longer than her arm, and nice and solid. Seeing as how it would be the last one she got from Falk for a while it seemed a waste, but she used it to poke at the boy’s face until he woke up.

“Uhhg. was that really necessary.” He asked, massaging his jaw.

“I told you we were leaving an hour after sunrise, it’s not my fault you weren’t up for it. Grab what you need and let’s go already.”

“Sure, sure give me a minute.” he walked into the back rooms to splash some water on his face and grabbed three staves and a bag. “So what’s the plan for the day?”

She eyed them, unable to help but be a little curious about how they turned out, before answering. “We’re going to the adventurers guild, now come on and hurry up.”

She hurried over to the adventurers guild with him and went over to the front desk where they were greeted by an employee, the faceless hominid Onk. “Morning Thera, oh and you’re with Ben! I didn’t know you two knew each other.”

Right, his name’s Ben, I guess I should at least try and remember that. Wait how does he know Onk?

“I thought you said you weren’t an adventurer?”

“Well I’ve joined the guild but I’m not really.” He responded, shifting around awkwardly.

Onk stepped in to explain on his behalf. “Oh he just joined to use our books to learn about the resources in the area. A little unusual but there’s no rules against it.”

Didn’t uncle say something about buying materials he hunted? Maybe I’m just remembering wrong. “Well unfortunately I’m forced to party with him for a while. Can you find something you think we could handle?”

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“Hmm, Ben I have to say I don’t think this is a good idea. Have you developed any combat skills in the past few months?”

“I haven’t but this is the will of my teacher. For the next little while I’ll be in charge of making her equipment so do you think you could give us an easy quest for now so we could see how what I already made her works out?”

“Well if it can’t be avoided then I guess that’s that. Thera I know you usually try one rank 6 quest a day, but for now I would recommend you accept rank 7 hunting quest. Right now I would say to try and find some scrells. There isn’t a minimum quantity, we pay by the kill, and there’s no time limit for it so just hunt what you can while you get used to working with Ben okay?”

She had already been unhappy, and now she had to take quests below her level. “Fine. what do they look like and where have they been spotted.”

Surprising her though, Ben spoke up to answer. “They’re typically in the western part of the forest, about a forty-minute walk up along the river.”

“How do you know that?”