NOVEL WEB Chapter 48 - Missions
The benefits from the guild were fairly nice and mostly involved discounts in certain shops in the city, along with easier access to travel between kingdoms and city-states in which the guild was in. Finally, guild members had some authority and political immunity. This meant that guild members couldn’t be easily accused of murder by some random idiot and thus be instantly taken to jail. It also meant that depending on the contract they were in, they could gain temporary authority to perform acts that would otherwise not be allowed.
Tesilim was also told the guild's basic rules. Rule one was straightforward: Do not kill or endanger other guild members. The second was also reasonably simple, stating they were not to damage or destroy guild property. Finally, the third rule was when things got a bit more vague. The third rule stated that guild members should not take actions that could damage the guild or its reputation.
That third rule was vague, and Tesilim questioned it. However, it was vague for a reason, as it gave the guild more control over the adventurers, who were effectively mercenaries for hire. Now, the guild wasn’t perfect and said rule had been abused through corruption, clever adventurers, or just politics. The thing was that it was never taken to a point where it could genuinely cause major harm to the guild or its members.
Tesilim had been weary of that, doubting the statement, at least until he learned the truth about the guild. The guild wasn’t just run by normal mortals who could be easily corrupted. Instead, the guild was backed by a god, something Tesilim would come to learn was the running theme for the planet. So, even if a large organization could have certain corrupt parts, the fact that the top folks were followers of a god meant that the corruption could never run so deep that it would affect the organization too much.
The guild's patron deity was Meril, the Goddess of Heroes and Adventure. Apparently, the deity wasn’t very open about the fact that she ran the guild, as she knew many of the members weren’t necessarily heroes but were there for the money it could provide. However, the goddess viewed the guild as a way to watch and support those she believed could become proper heroes.
Moving away from that conversation, Tesilim and his two companions decided to make a temporary team, which was a legitimate thing they had to do. Lili and Alyx were in the guild as solo adventurers. So, they had to sign a form stating they were temporarily joining Team WW106 and that if they didn’t report back within a month to formalize a proper team, it would be disbanded, and they would all return to being marked as solo adventurers.
After filing all of that, they were released, and Tesilim was taken upstairs.
The upstairs was also rather busy.
It was a large area, much like downstairs, except half of the front trunk was missing, and instead, there was just a giant balcony. The balcony had some chairs and tables, but it was mostly filled with adventurers in small groups laughing and talking.
The rest of the upstairs floor was occupied by three boards, with three counters next to each. Each board and thus the assigned counter was smaller than the previous until finally, next to the smallest counter, was a pair of double doors that led deeper into the guild. To get a better idea of the sheer size of the boards, the first board was the size of a large baseball scoreboard, maybe a bit bigger. The second board was half the size of the first and the third half the size of the second.
Lili explained that the largest board was the D Rank board and was filled with tons of D Rank requests. The second largest board was for C Rank, and the third was for B Rank. She mentioned that A-Rank or above requests were too dangerous, and if they had such requests, the guild gave them to specific teams or individuals.
So, basically, they went up to the board, picked a mission, and then went to the corresponding counter, which matched each of the board's size. There, they spoke with a guild employee and registered the request. Sometimes, if the request had more specific, private details or was rather complicated, they would head downstairs and speak with someone at a cubicle to get more information.
Moving up to the board, Tesilim began scanning the missions as Alyx and Lili explained a few more things that quickly became apparent. The first thing was that there were four different kinds of missions. There was extermination, defense, collection, and investigation. Naturally, each mission dealt with what its classification implied. A mission to exterminate meant killing stuff, a defense mission usually meant defending something, the collection was collecting something, and finally, an investigation meant investigating something. It was a bit vague, but that was what it was, as the specifics of the mission were everything, and sometimes a mission could involve more than one category. A good example was an extermination mission involving killing some deadly trees and collecting their tree roots or defending a scholar as they investigated some ruin.
From there, each mission was given a number of adventurers that could be required for it, though this was more of a recommendation than anything. Additionally, the mission was given a Low, Mid, or High Ranking stat for its intended rank. This, along with the number of adventurers, was also an estimate by the guild based on what they knew of the mission and by using their ranking categories to help members decide on what was best for them.
The next thing listed was what kind of monster to expect or whether the monsters were original to the planet or came from the Realms or something else altogether.
Finally, the one thing not listed on the request was the reward given. That would only be told to a member once they went up to the counter and asked for more information about the request.
Looking through the available missions, Tesilim was interested in three, and they were all about killing something or other. He wanted them because they were about killing stuff, and he was itching for a proper fight. However, they also seemed easy.
Lili and Alyx also told him they wanted him to progress a bit faster as Lili was Low C Rank and Alyx was already Mid and moving to High D Rank. Additionally, Tesilim needed to learn the hard way and make mistakes but with some protection nearby. As such, the two were going to mainly take a back seat and let him do things on his own.
So, he took a look at the three easiest missions he could find, which were some form of extermination and collection. The first was about killing some spore wolves and bringing back the mushrooms that grew from them. The second mission wasn't necessarily fully extermination, but it involved fighting. It was a mission about heading to this cave where some Abzul and Axel Cleric was performing an experiment involving a wild nature spirit. They were to subjugate the spirit in the cave and collect an orb that was in there. Finally, the third was finding a specific tree called the Birds Willow. The tree grew a specific fruit that this alchemist wanted. However, the birds in that particular tree grew in power by consuming the fruit and would attack anything that approached the tree.
It was at that point that Tesilim asked how many missions they could take out at a time, and he was informed that they could take one mission plus an additional one for each level of loyalty a member had with the guild. For their party, that meant the average level of loyalty was fairly high due to Lili, as Alyx didn't really take on too many missions.
To sum it up their party could take a total of three, which was rather perfect. Lili warned him that depending on each mission's time, they might have to take another one or leave one behind.
Taking the three pieces of definitely enchanted paper up to the counter, they were soon speaking with a guild attendant. The three requests were all due within a week of accepting them, which meant if they got them today, they needed to complete them by the 2nd.
Since they agreed the quests were easy enough, they accepted them before going downstairs to receive more details like the cave's location or where they could find this magical tree.
However, soon after they stamped their badges on a paper stating they took on three different missions and which missions they took, something popped up for Tesilim along with the usual jingle.
🔷 Crystal Notice 🔷
🔷 Adventure Goal 🔷
Name: Wolves Wearing Mushrooms.
Type: Extermination ⚔️ & Collection 🧺.
Rank: D.
Danger: Low 🟢.
Suggested Number: 2+.
Threat: Novarian Monster 🧿✔️.
Goal: Acquire 25 Wolf Mushrooms. 0/25.
Reward: 50 Gold & 1 Chaos Point.
Description: You have been tasked with delving deeper into the forest and finding spore wolves near the Mushrooms Grove. You are to kill the wolves and acquire the mushrooms growing on their fur. Once the mushrooms have been acquired, you are to return them to the proper Adventurer's Guild personnel.
🔷
🔷 Crystal Notice 🔷
🔷 Adventure Goal 🔷
Name: Cultivating Unkindly Nature.
Type: Extermination ⚔️ & Collection 🧺.
Rank: D.
Danger: Medium🟠.
Suggested Number: +2.
Threat: Lush Elemental 🌳✔️.
Goal: Collect the modified Orb of Binding 0/1.
Reward: 150 Gold & 1 Chaos Point.
Description: A cleric of Abzul and Axel is experimenting in the field of elemental creation. Specifically, the cleric is attempting to create a naturally fake elemental that would work like a golem. The cleric has bound a wild and unintelligent nature spirit or elemental into a cave. Then he modified an orb of binding in an attempt to trap a part of the elemental’s essence and breathe into it a form of scripted life, much like how golems are created. You are to find the cave following the marker location in your vision. Then, you must incapacitate the elemental and retrieve the orb found inside the cave. Once the orb has been retrieved, you must return it to the appropriate guild personnel. The elemental must be left alive.
🔷
🔷 Crystal Notice 🔷
🔷 Adventure Goal 🔷
Name: Birds Sitting on a Tree.
Type: Extermination ⚔️ & Collection 🧺.
Rank: D.
Danger: Low 🟢.
Suggested Number: 3+.
Threat: Novarian Monster 🧿✔️.
Goal: Acquire 20 Willow Fruit 0/20.
Reward: 50 Gold & 1 Chaos Point.
Description: An alchemist wants the cone-looking fruit of the tree known as the Birds Willow. Follow the marker location on your vision to the tree. There, you must collect the tree's fruit while fending off the fruits protectors. Once collected, bring the fruit to the proper guild personnel.
🔷
Looking at the quests, Tesilim noticed the obvious thing first, which were the little icons. The icons were definitely not on the original quest paper. Also there was the fact that the system seemingly knew this information about the quest without Tesilim actually getting the details first. It was a bit odd seeing this system be so omniscient, but he guessed it did tell him that in one of his abilities. Finally, the fact that the quests were named was neat, as the actual pieces of paper had numbers and letters assigned to them instead.
Tesilim shared this fact with Lili and Alyx as they walked downstairs.
He really shouldn’t have.