4 – Adventurer\’s Guild

Vivi returned the bank teller to his place behind the counter, dropped the [Illusion] she’d used to hide their disappearance from other customers, and immediately felt bad about what she’d done.

But what other choice had she had? She needed him not to run off and tell the guards about her. On top of that, she needed to know how to access her account—assuming it really was locked.

How else could she prove, quickly and reliably, that she was who she said she was except through an explosive display of magic?

Admittedly, she’d been curious what the extent of her magical strength was too. She might have seized the first reasonable excuse for casting a high-tier spell.

It had been…impressive. To say the least. She was used to casting similar spells in the game of Seven Cataclysms, but the realism changed everything. She’d felt that explosion in her bones. It had rattled her entire skeleton and lit up the world around her. She’d purposefully blinked an enormous distance away, into the deep wilderness far out of range of Prismarche and nearby cities, but even with that precaution, she might have alerted someone.

Regardless, she felt bad about what she’d done. Because the teller was shaken, his face pale and his knees wobbling.

Which was a maybe fitting reaction to being kidnapped and forced to watch a strange woman—a figure of myth—disintegrate a small section of wilderness with a wave of her staff.

Thankfully, she had a spell for this. She had a spell for most things.

“[Calm].”

Mental magics were a whole branch of the arcane, and naturally her character, Vivisari, was well-versed in them. There were few branches she wasn’t comfortable with.

She could have erased his memories entirely and skipped all this nonsense, but that idea disturbed her, hence she’d taken an alternate path. It seemed like the sort of line she shouldn’t cross. Though this was the world of a video game she once played, it was clearly real life, and these were real people. Messing with someone’s memories or free will was wrong.

A spell to calm someone down didn’t feel like it counted. It might be a borderline case since technically it was mental magic, yes, but it didn’t do anything more than sitting down and taking some deep breaths would. The teller certainly wasn’t cured. He just didn’t seem hysterical and ready to flee anymore.

His knuckles were white as he gripped the counter top, leaning on it for support. “I apologize for any…slights…you feel I offered, Lady…Vivisari.”

His shaky words weren’t helping her feel better. If he was this rattled after a calming spell, she’d left an impression.

“It’s fine. Is my account really locked?”

He nodded rapidly. “But it was preserved. Your funds are still available. You’d simply have to speak with someone with higher-level access to the banking system to remove the lock.”

“Who?”

He hesitated. “For a case as important as yours? Likely the Chief Banker himself, in Meridian.” He seemed extremely worried that she would be upset by that answer.

She was annoyed, but more at herself for having terrified some random service worker. And, admittedly, irritated at the situation itself. She was seriously barred from her account?

“I see. I intended to head that way regardless, I suppose.” She waved a hand dismissively. “As I said, I’m here on private business. Please don’t spread the word.”

He practically fell over himself in his rush to assure her that he wouldn’t, and she left the bank feeling slightly gross with herself. She’d definitely gotten too caught up in her ‘proof of identity’.

…The explosion had been really cool though.

Back out in the daylight, she reevaluated her plan of attack.

It had been too much to hope for to simply withdraw the funds she needed. Nothing was ever easy. That said, it couldn’t be difficult to make some basic coin, not as a level two-thousand plus mage.

Heck, her inventory might be mostly empty, but she had a set of healing and mana potions she could pawn off, right? That would be an easy way. She hardly needed a mountain of riches, just enough to buy food and a place to sleep. And also a Greateagle flight—or a train ticket? Which would be faster? The train would be the more comfortable of the two, at a minimum.

Pulling up her inventory, she tapped the square holding her health potion and withdrew one. The flask was wide and triangular with a fat base.

She sloshed the potion back and forth, watching the liquid inside swirl and crash against the glass in a fascinating way. The fluid seemed much more magical when disturbed, changing hues into various shades of sparkling red and orange.

How much would one of these sell for? They were the highest-tier health potions she’d been able to buy, meant for her challenge runs soloing the Ashen Hierophant on mythic difficulty. They had to be valuable.

But even she had a limited supply. Maybe she shouldn’t sell it. Again, she only needed enough coin for basic food, shelter, and miscellaneous needs.

Not really thinking, she tugged on the cork and popped the potion open, curious what it smelled like.

Honey, mint, and cinnamon. The scent was instant and pervasive, but even more noticeable was the way magic gushed from the vial. It was a palpable thing it was so dense, even to her resistant magical senses.

Fumes drifted out of the thin neck of the flask, settled onto the cobblestone, and weeds began sprouting from the cracks, green foliage appearing from nowhere, growth spurred on by the immense regenerative properties held in even a whiff of the potion. She hastily capped and inventoried it, looking around to see if anyone had noticed. No one had.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

So, uh, yeah. Probably too valuable to pawn. The same went for her mana potions and other challenge-run consumables.

Well, fine. There was always working for a living.

She meant the Adventurer’s Guild, of course. She was looking forward to experimenting more with her abilities anyway. A hunting trip was in order. Two birds with one stone.

She was still getting used to being in a fantasy world. Being around everyday civilians was already surreal. Stepping foot into the Adventurer’s Guild and being met with humans, elves, demons, and even a dwarf, all of them dressed in varying sets of armor—platemail and flowing robes and leather cuirasses—was another matter altogether.