Inch by Inch

“I found it! I found one!” Ana yanked the task notice off the wall with a tearing sound that did not bode well for the paper. “Oh, thank the Three. Finally.”

The outburst earned her an irritated glare from a middle-aged man and woman who were inspecting the task board further into the room. Ana paid them no mind, and Jay, who was very sick of reading tiny letters in various qualities of handwriting, couldn’t bring himself to either.

“Incredible. Where and what is it? I’ll take anything at this point.”

“Dyve hill. It has the triquetra in red,” she proclaimed proudly, waving the notice with a torn corner at him.

Jay reached for it, but held back from touching the paper. If he grabbed onto the notice while she was waving it about, there was a chance it would rip further. It would still be legible, even if torn in two, but knowing his luck, the clerks would take offense to the destruction. His team seemed doomed to be stuck with Cole for all their questions and requests, and the scarred man didn’t like them very much. It wasn’t worth the risk.

Ana carried no such worries. Seeing his outstretched hands, she thrust the paper at him, sending him scrambling to catch it before it fluttered to the ground. Relieved of her burden and the search, she danced a little victory jig.

“Dyve hill. Patrol and elimination around... Oh.” The blow was exhausting, that last heave of breath. “We can’t take this.”

“What?” Ana’s screech as she aborted her celebration was shrill enough to make him wince. “It says Apprentice rank! It’s a repeat!”

“It is, but they have known aggressive pests in the area. The oddities aren’t that dangerous — still Apprentice level, but the task wants two simultaneous patrols during daylight hours to cover more area.”

“Two... We could do it!” She looked around at Kane for support. “You or Kane could take one side, and I could go with either...”

Her babble slowed as she realized what she was signing them up for. Sure, they might have been able to handle themselves against a more violent version of knobs, but if something else found its way around...

“We cannot accept a task that would require us to split up,” Kane responded gently, stepping away from the board. “We are Apprentice rank as a team, not individually.”

Her face screwed up. “What? Why not?”

“Most adventurers are ranked by team. It is rare to have an adventurer ranked separately. At later ranks there is an assumption that the individuals are a rank lower by themselves.”

“Okay — then why don’t one of you sign up by yourselves? We’d have two tags, and could take these kinds of tasks.” Ana was grasping at falling petals now, and she knew it, but the frustration pushed her past the effort of holding back.

“Bureaus don’t sign people up individually.”

“Do I even want to know why?” Her frustration was growing with each question.

“People tend to die alone,” Jay answered at a low volume. Adventuring was a dangerous profession, and it was best not to talk about death loudly at the center of it unless you wanted to earn some dirty looks.

In the silence that followed the statement, he took the time to post the notice back up on the board, carefully tacking it so that the rip wasn’t immediately apparent.

“Why don’t we rank up then? I was looking into the-”

Kane caught this question as well. “We don’t have the time in rank or enough completed tasks. The next rank up is at the solstice.”

Ana threw her hands up. “I give up.” She retreated to one of the chairs along the opposite wall — not the one with the disguised broken back.

Jay couldn’t help but agree with her. He turned back to the board, to the hundreds of task notices of all ages and types. “If we had a larger team, or we knew someone else who’d do it with us...”

Ana perked up and Kane’s eyebrows rose in consideration.

“But we don’t. Everyone we know is in a guild. Their leaders won’t want to cooperate with us.”

All they’d be doing would be finding a task for another guild to take.

Jay rubbed at his face, letting the task fall to his side. “Let’s stop. We won’t find a repeat task. They’re all gone.”

Kane reached forward and thumbed one of the higher up notices. “We could start hunting.”

Jay stepped closer to read the task. It was much like the one Ana had found weeks before. An open repeat for a fertile, invasive oddity.

It wasn’t a bad idea, but there were issues. The first was money. Dropping bodies off at the knacker might have worked for the occasional knob, but if they were going to live off the funds, they’d need to find someone to sell the meat and furs to. If that was even a possibility for whatever oddity they hunted. Some kinds of creatures were inedible or covered in a shell or skin that was no good for anything.

And if they were going to avoid selling to a knacker, then they’d need to learn how to dress an oddity. What faint recollection Jay had of Elsie’s description of her Word, Expel, told him that the whole process was nothing he wanted to do.

The second issue was where to hunt. This was a city. All the land around Lauchia was owned in a more physical way than it had been in the outskirts of Kavakar. Space was at a premium when you needed to feed so many people and it was defended vigorously. Without the reasoning and knowing of being on patrol in the area, they wouldn’t be welcome. Few farmers and landowners would want a strange team of adventurers running around on their land.

More issues cropped up the longer he thought about it. All it would take is several days of poor luck and they’d be broke.

Jay shook his head. “Let’s keep that as a backup. We can’t out-compete trained hunters, and the tasks won’t count towards our advancement in the guild.”

Kane shrugged, not taking the refusal personally. “Normal tasks then.”

Jay nodded, feeling drained at the idea, yet silly to be thinking that way. Before the Bedrock rookies had recommended repeat tasks, this was the kind of adventuring he’d spent years preparing for. With a long exhale, and several blinks to clear his eyes, he got back to brushing flicking pages and reading.

The older couple left the room with a task after a few minutes, and Ana rejoined Kane and him with the search. It was slower work now, that they weren’t skimming the contents looking for the repeat mark and the Apprentice or leather ranking. The vast majority of tasks on the board weren’t repeats, and a good portion of those were Apprentice ranked. It made for a lot of reading.

Yet, by the time thirty minutes had passed, all three of them had options.

“Guard task,” Ana announced, excitement and energy pushing her to go first.

Jay was glad to see she’d bounced back so quickly. Her commitment to adventuring always seemed the most fragile. If she was going to leave, it would be after the tailmouth fight, her reaction and all the ensuing mess.

But perhaps that was because Kane’s stoicness was as unreadable as his doziness.

Ana held the task out for them to read, but summarized it for them. “A farmer wants to reclaim land on his property. It’s not a long trip from the city, but because it’s been wild they need adventurers there. The farmer sounds very grumpy about it all.”

They did in fact. There were several choice words about the bureau and the city’s laws in the notice. It must have been funny to see the faces on all involved when the task was submitted.

“No date,” Kane noted.

“Paper is fresh, and so is the ink,” Ana replied, having already considered the question. “I think it’s likely this week, and the farmer wants to do it quietly. Hopefully, the clerks know more.”

Jay nodded. “The farmer might have been able to slip that under the clerk’s nose, but they would’ve needed to give a date when they paid. Nice find.”

Ana preened and looked at their papers. “Who’s next?”

Jay motioned to Kane, letting him go first.

“Delivery,” Kane began, holding the task out for them to read first. “Twenty to forty kilogram weight, out to the edge of the mana border.”

Jay’s eyebrows rose in surprise and interest. That was surprising. Apprentice tasks rarely went out that far. “What is the delivery for?”

Kane shrugged. “It doesn’t say. There is no time or location listed either, but... it’s for tomorrow.”

“Perfect,” Jay said with a grin. It had been one of his worries, that they wouldn’t have anything to do for a while. All he could find were several days, if not a week away. “We can ask for more information, but I wouldn’t mind a trip out to the wilds tomorrow.”

Ana gave a nod, but with her lips pressed together. She had clearly thought her task was going to be a stronger starter.

It was time for Jay to present his first. He’d sorted them by date. “Escort task. Forty bronze, and it sounds largely city based, but it doesn’t specify much.”

The details of the task were the least interesting of the bunch, but it did attract attention from the others for the reward alone. Forty bronze was close to half their weekly costs.

“Not all that long a task either,” Kane murmured as he inspected the task. The starting time was late morning and finished two hours before the current sunset time. It met Kane’s approval anyway — perhaps it suited the library’s hours — he nodded and with Ana’s agreement, they added it to the shortlist.

The next task was from Kane, but the poorly defined wording suggested a requirement for specific skills or a suitable Word. Ana’s next met the same fate based on a bad reward for work ratio. Jay’s follow up sparked a long debate before it was put in a new ‘maybe’ pile. The task itself wasn’t too bad, but the environment was troublesome.

Around and around they went in no particular order. It became fun. By the time they’d gone through all the tasks, there was even a smile on Kane’s face. That may have been due to something else though, as the swordsman’s attention began to slip towards the end.

They marched towards the bureau’s desks with new energy. Not even Cole’s pinched face and slumped shoulders could dissuade them. It wasn’t even a painful conversation in the end, and they left the bureau with new direction and motivation.

“So what do we need to do to advance outside of the combat test?” Ana asked, an almost dance-like quality to her steps.

“Tasks. Lots of tasks.” At her raised eyebrows, he waved his hands and added. “It’s complicated.”

The city states didn’t want to hand out responsibility and power to someone who ran around, swinging a giant ax about and causing problems. Or a sword that could cut through anything, for that matter.

To work your way up the ranks of adventurers, you needed to be competent and experienced. On top of the combat test, there was a written test, and to even reach that stage you needed to have completed a number of tasks. It didn’t stop giant ax wielding idiots, but it did ensure they at the very least knew how to swing the thing.

“It’s different for each city and often each year. They want a certain amount of adventurers at each rank, and advancements can be limited. On top of the task requirements, there’s the combat-” Her eyes widened with what he could only call glee. How had she found out about that actually? “-and written test which is the most important...”

The spark was gone. Ana lost interest so quickly that Jay looked at Kane in suspicion. Surely it couldn’t be catching? Her next question changed the subject quickly.

“What are we getting for lunch?”

“Some of that bread from those giant ovens?“ Jay suggested. Maybe his two teammates would be able to focus better with some food in their bellies.