Double Trouble – Chapter 14 – Target Acquired

Mikaela

It took a while to calm everyone down, and even then I doubt that it would have been possible if not for Bonny’s small size and stature. People had reacted more to the concept of a monster than the creature itself, and when Charlotte tugged her out and began snuggling her in front of everyone it had bled a lot of the fear off… though we still made sure to rush off fairly quickly after, before anyone else could actually put the creature’s self control to the test.

“You do realize that more rumors are going to start spreading after this, don’t you?” I asked her, resisting the urge to run my fingers down my face for the umpteenth time. “As if your attempts at playing super hero weren’t bad enough… Don’t think I’ve forgotten to lay into you for doing that without telling me, either! Just because I’ve been too busy trying to figure out all of your screw ups to properly lecture you doesn’t mean you’re off the hook!”

“…Sorry, Sis,” Charlotte hesitantly replied, rubbing the back of her head sheepishly. At least she had the goodgrace not to argue with me… for once. “I just… really wanted to do some good.”

“Yes, well, maybe next time you could at least wear a costume?” I replied, causing my sister to give me a wide eyed look. “Oh, don’t try and pretend you aren’t going to do it again. We both know I can’t stop you. The only thing I can do is damage control, and that means getting you to tell me when you’re planning to do something crazy like this again.”

“Wow,” Charlotte replied. “That’s… actually pretty reasonable of you?”

“Of course it is. I’m perfectly reasonable! It’s you who’s always doing crazy things without consulting anyone.”

Charlotte looked like she had something she wanted to say to that, but Reckt cleared her throat before Charlotte could speak again. 

“Uh, girls? I know you’re using some sorta barrier to keep the sound in, but could you please not argue about delicate topics while we’re in the guild? Everyone’s eyeing us…”

“Including a couple cuties,” Charlotte remarked, waving at a couple of girls off in the corner.

Singh didn’t say anything, apparently preferring to roll her eyes at my sister’s antics. Not that I didn’t understand how she felt.

“We can discuss this further at a later date,” I declared, dropping the barrier around us. “We’re up next in line in any case.”

“Hello!” the secretary cheerfully greeted us. A blond haired man with a professional smile on his lips, and a… slightly less professional look in his eyes. The way his gaze lingered on my chest made me uncomfortable, but it only lasted a moment before he returned his gaze to my face. “Are you here to turn in a request or give one? Or did you need a request explained to you?”

“We’re turning one in,” Charlotte replied before I could. Not that I would have said anything different. “There was a request for wolfberries?”

“Of course,” the secretary replied, nodding his head. “Five virtues per berry. I’ll need to see your guild cards first, if you don’t mind?”

“Me and my sister are still rookies,” I explained, even as I pulled out the small slip of paper that showed my membership. It was a perfectly normal piece of parchment, other than for the fact that it happened to contain my information. “And Singh isn’t a member, just a traveling companion.”

“I’m their guide,” Reckt said, pulling out her own card, even as Charlotte scrounged around in her bag for the proper document. A show, I hoped, considering we both had magic storage bags, but I never could be sure with her… 

The secretary glanced over our cards before reaching for Reckt’s. Where ours were flimsy bits of papers, hers was rigid and seemed to have an almost metallic sheen.

“One moment, please,” the secretary said before conjuring a flame in front of the card. I almost called out in surprise, but to my shock the card didn’t go up in smoke. It seemed perfectly fine, in fact.

“Proper guild cards are made of ironwood,” Reckt informed me, a touch of pride in her voice. “They don’t burn.”

“It’s the easiest way to confirm the authenticity of a card,” the secretary confirmed. “Not that I don’t recognize Reckt, of course, but procedure is procedure.”

“Someone’s popular,” Charlotte remarked with a small smirk, eyeing Reckt who rubbed the back of her head sheepishly.

“Of course,” the secretary confirmed. “She’s mangled so many requests, she’s become the talk of the guild hall… Speaking of which, I trust that the berries you’re turning in are in an edible condition?”

“Perfectly preserved,” I replied, even as Reckt flinched. At a guess, it wouldn’t have been the first time she’d messed up a request by letting the materials spoil. Still, I calmly placed a pre-prepared bag stuffed with berries onto the counter. “You can count them if you’d like.”

“I’ll need to,” the secretary confirmed, eyeing the bag. It was on the larger side, by necessity, what with it carrying a solid half of the berries we’d collected. The rest, of course, were coming home with us for the royal chefs to experiment with. “Do you mind if we hold onto the bag and return it with your money after the fact? It might take a few hours to process.”

“Of course,” I agreed with a nod. “So long as it doesn’t interfere with us taking another request in the meantime.”

“Guild members – including rookies – are allowed to take multiple requests at once,” the secretary informed us. “Though failing to complete any of them will result in a fine.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” I replied. The berries were all accounted for, after all.

“In the meantime, I’ll need to stamp you and your sister’s cards,” the secretary said, reaching under the desk to pull out a small stamp. “While the bag still needs to be sorted through, I’ve seen enough to at least confirm you’ve completed the minimum requirements.”

“Meaning we can take any request, right?” Charlotte asked, leaning forward in excitement.

“In theory,” the secretary replied, clearly wary. “But I will remind you again of the fee should you fail. I highly recommend paying attention to the difficulty rating while making your selection.”

“We will,” I promised before Charlotte could say something stupid about how powerful we were. “Thank you for your time.” Saying so, I proffered my card to the secretary, who quickly stamped it with the symbol of a sword, surrounded by stars and little squiggly lines, likely present to make it just a little harder for someone to copy.

“I’ll pull the paperwork on the request to mark it complete, as well,” the secretary informed us. “In the meantime, feel free to review the request board and sign up for your second rookie request.”

“Will do!” Charlotte replied, clearly ready to bounce off to the board that very moment.

“One more thing,” I said, before she could. “We ran into a slight problem with the gathering area.”

“A problem?” the secretary asked, caution in his voice. “I regret to inform you that any personal injuries or losses that occur during an outing is the adventurer’s responsibility.”

“Of course,” I agreed, “but this goes a little beyond that. The request was marked with two stars, if memory serves – a bit high in difficulty for a first request, but still doable.”

The secretary nodded. “The area they grow in is mostly inhabited by mundane creatures. Wolves are the greatest danger, as they have claimed much of the area as territory.”

“The wolves are gone,” I said plainly. “For now at least – though they might return now that we’ve taken care of the spider infestation.”

“…Spider… infestation?”

“Indeed. It seems there was a rather large spider present – either new to the area, or formerly dormant for whatever reason. It, and the many spiders I assume to be its spawn, gave us some amount of trouble. Not too much trouble, obviously, as we did succeed in the end – both in collecting the berries and destroying the spider, which in turn sent its spawn packing. Still, I’d be careful of sending other newbies to the area until things calm down.”

“I’ll need to talk to the guild master about this,” the secretary replied in a serious tone, clearly worried. “Assuming your information can be verified, we’ll need to update the danger rating for all requests in the area…”

“So long as you’re aware,” I replied with a nod, before turning away and walking towards the request board. Much to the delight of my sister, who was clearly itching to pick out our next adventure.

“Uh… was that really a good idea?” Reckt asked once we were a bit away from the desk. “I mean, if they find out what you did to that spider it might raise some questions…”

“Then they can ask them,” I replied. “Assuming they can even find the spider to begin with, it’s probably in our best interest to find out how much we can get away with… At least in this town the guild master and mayor are both on our side and will likely be willing to cover things up for us if things go too far.”

“And also we don’t want a bunch of people dying because we kept information withheld,” Charlotte added. It was such an obvious remark I didn’t see the need to comment on it.

“What did they do, anyway?” Singh asked. “Smash it with a tree, or something?”

“We cooked it alive, actually… A rather brutal end, but fitting for its crimes against me.”

Charlotte nodded. “It totally had it coming.”

“I didn’t see it,” Reckt admitted, “but I’m betting they went totally overboard…”

“It’s fiiiiine,” Charlotte promised, practically dancing the last few steps to the board and skimming over the papers there.

I did the same, paying less attention to the words on the paper and more to the stamps in the corners. Though said stamps mostly existed for the sake of those who couldn’t read, they also happened to be a great way of filtering through requests. Anything less than two star difficulty, for example, would surely bore Charlotte, while anything over four stars would draw far too much attention to ourselves. The ones stamped with a leaf could likewise be ignored, as we needed no more gathering requests, as could any marked with a hoofprint as they were all about escorting people to other towns or cities. We’d likely want to take the latter requests in the future, but we’d need to stay in the area to complete our rookie requests.

Of course, it went without saying that anything involving too low a pay was out. Charlotte and I needed to make a gold saint each if we wanted to leave the rookie requests behind. Which meant something high paying, if we didn’t want to be taking multiple…

“How about this one?” Charlotte suggested, pointing at a sheet I’d bypassed. It only listed one-star difficulty, after all. Yet, looking at the price, it was abnormally high – a saint and five crosses. Enough that we could quite likely reach our goal, if we added in what we’d be making from the berries.

“Why would something with an easy rating pay so much?” I wondered aloud.

“Because it’s not easy,” Reckt told us, grimacing. “Just not dangerous. Those things tend to scatter when things get tough for them.”

“We can handle it!” Charlotte replied, full of confidence. Not that I disagreed.

“What are you guys even talking about?” Singh asked, squinting at the paper Charlotte was pointing to. “I can’t read.”

“Oh, nothing much,” Charlotte replied with a grin, surprising me by not reacting to Singh’s illiteracy. If it had been me admitting to such a flaw she most certainly would have teased me for it. “Just a quest to take down our Mama’s mortal enemy.”

“Mama’s…” I paused, taking time to read the request properly before smiling. “Yes… I suppose it would please Mama if we were to take care of the bane of her existence, wouldn’t it? So long as we didn’t go into too much detail when describing it.”

“The bane of…” Reckt paused. “Wait, by Mama you mean…?”

“The Demon Queen,” I confirmed, after putting a barrier around us once more. 

“And the bane of her existence is…?” Singh asked, clearly impatient.

Charlotte and I traded looks, before shooting Singh a matching set of grins. “A rat king.”

~~~

Author’s Notes

Hey everyone! Chapter 14 is here, with many thanks to FallingLeaf for editing and title suggestion… Good thing I reread it, too, because I had a bit of a plot hole in the rough draft of chapter 15 that’ll be fixed going forward.

I’d like to say chapter 16 will be written soon, but depression has been kicking my ass even more than normal of late… That said, I’m hoping to get something done soon. Probably either a one-shot, or a chapter of Most (Un)Manly. Will try to get DT out sometime this week.