[coronatiger]

Thoughts on November 30th (continued)

The discussion ground to a halt when we ran out of ideas about the Serals. I offered to go to Urdon to collect the list of items for sale at the auction, and Olivia and I went to our own room. I changed into clothes that would fit Fabian, kissed Olivia goodbye and went to find Marvin at the stables.

I transformed into Fabian once I was out of sight from the knowledge guild compound. I rode to Urdon and found an alley near the auction warehouse where I transformed back to Mattea. I touched my chest to verify that I was in the correct shape. All these transformations were confusing. I had to pass the guard posts as Fabian, but the knowledge guild and the adventurers guild knew me as Mattea, so I had to be myself when conducting official business, like signing up for auctions and buying potions.

Inside, I asked for the auction list, and the functionary checked his papers before giving it to me. I suppose he looked to see if I was allowed to have the list. I thanked him and returned to the knowledge guild, transforming into Fabian after I left the warehouse, and back to Mattea again when I entered the woods.

I threw off my backpack and crashed onto the bed. Olivia was worried I was sick, but I was just exhausted from four transformations without much rest between. I pulled the auction list from my pouch and read through it. It was disappointing not to find anything I wanted to buy, but maybe I should be pleased that I didn’t need anything. I had hoped for a magic bow or perhaps better armor or some utility item. The only armor on the list was masterwork plate armor; Ilzo could find it interesting. There was a scroll of Ancient History on the list, which made me think about Leopold.

I spent the day in our room, going out only for meals. Va’lyndra informed us about her plans to discuss the Elendus gift with Varian, the guild’s artifact expert.

In the evening, someone knocked on our door. One of the guild leaders, Wilhelm, wanted to speak to me. The messenger showed the way to Wilhelm’s office. Wilhelm had received reports about my activities this last week, and asked me to stop my missionary work. The knowledge guild wanted to remain secular, and not beholden to any one god. Wilhelm offered to put me in touch with some people who knew a lot about Sulla if I acceded to his request. I said that was fine. Wilhelm added that he’d appreciate if I stopped the related activities, too. At least when it involved the guild members. He didn’t care what I did with my adventuring companions, but he knew about the luck draining, and didn’t want me to inflict that on his people.

I shook Wilhelm’s hand and went to tell Olivia the good news. I expected her to be overjoyed to have me all to herself again, but she was more thoughtful than happy. She still celebrated with me, though.


Thoughts on December 1st

We gathered in Olivia’s and my room after breakfast to discuss the auction list. I said I didn’t care for any of the items, but the others wanted to bid on quite a few. We agreed on a prioritized order of those items and noted down how much we were willing to pay for each of them. We decided to front almost all the money required for our maximum bids, and not depend on our magic items being successfully sold.

Ilzo, Va’lyndra and Leopold went to fetch their gold. We had to put the money in the bank before the auction for our bids to be considered. Olivia and Va’lyndra counted the money, one thousand seven hundred thirty-one gold pieces. It wasn’t every day that I saw that amount gathered in one place, but Olivia reminded me that I had paid a thousand gold pieces for my cornucopia quiver at an earlier auction. The most expensive item we were bidding on this time was a so-called “Stone of Volcanic Eruption” with a minimum bid of six hundred, which Va’lyndra was willing to pay up to nine hundred for. For a single-use item, it had better be good.

As we put the gold into pouches and put them into my backpack, Va’lyndra expressed concern and said she didn’t want me to go alone. I asked what she was worried about. If she feared robbers, Ilzo should come, but if she thought I was going to do something stupid, Olivia should escort me instead. Va’lyndra said she wanted both of them to accompany me.

Ilzo wore his gold-plated bone armor when we left the compound. It might not be a good deterrent for robbery, but his size and the way he carried Surkalpi certainly were. He had said that if someone tried to rob me, I could just outrun them. This was true, except that Olivia was with me. I’d fight to the death to protect her, or more likely just give up the money if she was threatened.

I transformed into Fabian when the compound had disappeared behind the trees. One transformation didn’t take that much out of me, but I appreciated the slow pace that Olivia dictated on Bluebell. I rode behind her on Marvin; Ilzo walked in front. When we reached the main road, there was room for Olivia and me to ride side by side, but she ordered me to stay behind. Traveling single-file had proven wise on adventure, so she thought we should do that.

The soldiers outside the gates didn’t bother us, and I directed Ilzo to go to my transformation alley. I changed back into Mattea, and we walked inside the warehouse. I gave our letter to the functionary and asked if it looked all right. He said it was fine, and I handed over the gold. The functionary counted the money at a record-breaking speed, and arrived at the same amount that we had counted. He wrote a receipt and gave it to me. I passed it to Olivia, whispering that she should give it to Va’lyndra.

I asked the functionary to remind me when we would get the results. He said that the deadline for delivering bids was the twentieth, and they needed at least two weeks to process the bids. That meant we could collect our prizes in the beginning of January. The functionary said that we could arrange for the items and money to be shipped to anywhere their bank had a branch office, but I said we’d pick up our stuff here in Urdon.

Since we had five weeks or more with nothing to do, I asked Ilzo if we should go to the adventurers’ guild and check the quest board. Va’lyndra and Leopold had their studies, so I thought we should find something that Ilzo and I could handle on our own.

Gnomus greeted us at the guildhall and informed me that they had just received a flight potion with my name on it. More would arrive in a week’s time. I asked Olivia to pay for it since I’m not to be trusted with our finances, and she told me afterwards that we were running low on cash, asking me to restrain myself until we got another cash infusion. I agreed but asked where all our money had gone; we hadn’t put up any of the money for the auction, and Olivia told me regularly that we were rich.

Olivia informed me that she had a special purse for our savings. If there had been anything I wanted from the auction, she would have opened that purse, but she wanted us to be provided for when my careers at adventuring and acrobatics were over. I gave her a hug and thanked her for planning ahead when I couldn’t.

Most of the quests on the board were beginner stuff. I thought maybe we needed to pick one of those since we didn’t know if Va’lyndra and Leopold were coming, but Ilzo found the best-paying quest, investigating disappeared people. I told him if we were to take that quest, we needed our companions.

We brought it to Gnomus who said he had a special quest for us. A village three days away hadn’t been heard from in a month, and we would have to find out why and deal with the situation. This quest was actually given by the knowledge guild, so we would have to talk to them about it. I thought that was good; then we could get Va’lyndra’s and Leopold’s opinions on questing, first.

Va’lyndra and Leopold had gone out to experiment with the Elendus blob, but we met at lunch and went upstairs to talk afterwards. I told them about the quest, and then we went to see Wilhelm Surre. Two elves and an ogre stood outside his office, glaring at each other, when we got there. We learned that we’d better come back tomorrow, when the guild leader wasn’t as busy.

Back in our room, Va’lyndra and Leopold told us about their experiment. They suspected the blob of being some kind of powerstone for divine magic, but they had both been nauseated when they tried using it. They wanted to use the blob to fuel the ritual to reveal the Seral in Garuk. We had learned from Neriel’s interrogation that the Seral there was an observer of the preparations against Alvheim. I said that if we were to try anything to the Seral, we should be there to see if anything happened. How would we know if the ritual worked if we were several days away from there? Va’lyndra said we could send an agent from the knowledge guild to observe the results, or send word to one who’s already there. We agreed to bring it up in tomorrow’s meeting with Wilhelm Surre.

I had a hard time focusing on our planning. My mind was on the fact that I didn’t perform yesterday, so when Ilzo left to check up on his arena and Va’lyndra and Leopold returned to their studies, I started practicing, deciding what tricks to show off tonight.