Chapter 209

For the first time in a long time, there wasn't much to do after lunch. For the most part, we were just waiting for things outside our control to move around us. Normally, I would think that being in this kind of situation would cause me anxiety but instead I felt rather relaxed oddly enough. My friends and I lounged around the guest building in the embassy. Morrigan and Torien had calmed down a little since lunch but they were still on edge. Since we weren't really doing anything though, they had managed to settle into relaxing and chatting with the others which felt like a step in the right direction.

Sometime in the late afternoon, Tarklin returned with an older human man. He was pretty tall and muscular and looked gruff, if I saw him on the street I would guess him to be a retired adventurer.

"Lilith!" Tarklin called out. "I asked some questions around the guild and found out that this is the guy that you're here to meet!"

I walked up to the two and the human nodded. "Name's Korrim of the cartography guild. You have a letter of introduction for me?" he asked.

"Oh right, the letter." I had completely forgotten about that. "Let me go up to my room and get it."

I pulled Mimi upstairs with me so that I could dig through my trunk and find the letter of introduction Raksha'va had given me all the way back in Traehall. I was relieved to see that the letter of introduction was still in good shape and the seal was still intact. I kissed Mimi on her cheek and went back downstairs to hand the letter over to Korrim. If I recall correctly, Korrim was the head of the cartography guild, so Tarklin managed to get him to come down here himself rather than a random receptionist or something.

"Here it is," I said, handing over the letter.

The man inspected the seal before breaking it and reading over the letter. When he finished he gave me an appraising look. "The guildmaster in Traehall says you would do well as a cartographer. Especially for dungeons. She says you have good draftsmanship but I'll have to be the judge of that." He looked back down at the letter and skimmed it again before nodding. "I have a few things in my bag here, let's get started right away. I'd like to see how well you can copy a map without any instruction first, see where we need to focus with you. You'll be trained as a field mapper, your maps don't need to be perfect but they still need to be accurate enough that they're useful."

I nodded. "That's about what I expected. Can we do it here, at the table?"

He snorted in response. "Well you have the right mindset for it. If you would have whined about not having a proper drafting table I would have made fun of ya."

I grinned. "We're adventurers, we gotta make do with what we have, right?"

"True enough. Here, I have some tools you can borrow for the task. You'll need to buy your own tools from the guild later. It's part of the test to see which tools you think are useful so I won't be explaining what they're all for. This here is a travel plane. For the work you'll be doing, the maps will be sized for this."

Korrim placed some tools on the table and I recognized nearly all of them at a glance. The 'travel plane' is just a hard and flat surface to write on, a bit bigger than a clipboard, but all of the other tools were sized to match it. There was a T-square, a triangle, a straight-edge ruler, a compass, a few curve guides, a plum bob, and two tools I didn't recognize. All of them were primarily drafting or measurement instruments. When he was finished laying all of the tools out, he spread a small map on the table and clamped a blank sheet of paper to the plane using two metal brackets to hold it in place.

"Alright. Your assignment will be to copy the map onto a new sheet of paper. This is primarily a draftsmanship test. For most everything else, you can just use a reference guide to learn as you go, but draftsmanship isn't something you can just learn overnight." He punctuated his statement by placing a dip pen and a bottle of ink above the plane. I had been hoping to start with something less permanent but it seems the test won't be that forgiving. Not that I have seen any graphite pencils around.

Tarklin cleared his throat. "Well, it seems you have everything under control here. I'll be back later tonight to talk to you. Have fun with your cartography training!"

I laughed and gave him a wave. "No problem. Thanks for arranging for Korrim to come here to the embassy. I appreciate it."

Tarklin gave a short bow. "It's the least I could do. Until later."

Once Tarklin left I noticed that most of my friends had come to watch me take my test. Korrim looked over them with a slightly curious glance but it didn't seem he was bothered by the little audience I had going. I'm not the type of person who gets embarrassed about drawing in front of others though so it didn't bother me either. I decided I would start with the straights first, just so that I could get a feel for the T-square and triangle.

For the next bell, I spent my time meticulously copying every detail of the map I could. The hardest parts were the free hand squiggles in places but I made a point to measure the space they took up and copy them as closely as I could. Eventually I had finished up and passed the plane over to Korrim to be judged. He took it and carefully looked over the copy of the map I had drawn. I swear I could see his lips twitch up in amusement a few times but I wasn't sure what part of the assignment he found funny.

"Well, Miss Lilith. From looking over this copy I can say two things. You have amazing draftsmanship abilities... and you don't know the first thing about maps." He suddenly started laughing before pointing at a spot on the map that I had spent a while on. "This here wasn't an accurate wall, it was just a scribble to indicate that it was a rough cave. I considered stopping you but when I noticed you were trying to copy it perfectly one to one, I wanted to see how well you would do. Pretty well, even your freehand skills are impressive." He pointed at another spot that I had spent a while on. "This part you copied is a signature, if you were taking a forgery test I would say you would have aced it." I blushed a little in response to that... Now that he pointed it out, I could see how that... scribble could be a signature, but I hadn't realized that when I was working on it...

"The good news is that I don't need to teach you any of the hard stuff. I just need to quiz you on a few of these other tools and lend you a reference book until you memorize the contents." He picked up the plum bob. "What is this for?" he asked.

"That's a plum bob, you use that to find the vertical line going straight down, and you can use it to find the angle of inclines," I replied.

He laughed. "You're very strange. You know how to use all of these drafting tools perfectly, but you don't know even basic map markings. You even know what this is. Most people who only read maps have no clue what this is for. How about this?" he asked holding up another instrument.

I shook my head. "No clue what that one is for."

"Hmm... This tool is used for measuring ambient mana density. It's particularly useful in dungeons where you'll be doing most of your work. Are you able to use magic at all?" he asked.

"I can."

"Good, then take this and supply it with a little bit of mana," Korrim said, handing me the tool.

It looked kind of like a TV remote, but instead of buttons, it had little indentations on it. I pushed some mana into the device and the lowest two indentations lit up in white.

He nodded. "Good, that's a two. Relatively low mana density, not uncommon in a city." He pointed to a few map markings that I had copied over without knowing what they were. "These are mana density markings. These are only ever considered semi-accurate since this sort of thing can change a lot in dungeons but it's worth noting down still because the ratios usually hold true. An area higher than other places in the dungeon tends to stay that way. Not always, but usually."

He pulled another map out of his bag. "This map is one that I only ever use for training purposes. It has every possible map marking on it, so I will be able to quickly run through them with you before leaving you with the reference book. I don't have much time left for you today but if you can copy this map perfectly and have it delivered to me tomorrow, as well as pass a measurement test, I'll give you a field mapper certification at the cartography guild. That will be plenty for what you need to satisfy the guildmaster of Traehall."

"Just like that?" I asked. "I expected that all of this would take a lot longer."

He nodded. "Normally it does. Sometimes months longer, but that's if you're starting from scratch. I don't know what you used to do but you're an experienced draftsman, you already have mastered most of the hardest parts of the trade. I still need to make sure you can do your measurements properly but assuming that you are half as good at that as you are at your draftsmanship, it shouldn't be an issue." He took a book out of his bag and placed it on the table. "This book also has a section for measuring. Normally I would test that too but based on how little you know about map markings, I assume you don't know any of these measuring techniques either. That's not a problem though, just read through this book, copy this second map, and I'll have a measuring test ready for you next time we meet. Does that sound acceptable to you?"

"Sounds good to me. Thank you Korrim," I replied.

He waved me off. "Don't worry about it. Frankly, I'm happy about this. Usually guild deals are a pain in the backside. Assuming you don't have any trouble measuring, this will have been one of the easiest guild deals I've ever done. For once they sent me someone with actual potential and not someone with a hope and a prayer that they'll be useful." He laughed. "Saves me a lot of effort."

He stood up and started collecting his tools. "Ah, one more thing. It'll be ten gold for a full set of draftsman tools. Do you need to pay that on credit or...?"

"Ah, no. I have ten gold for that. Give me a moment."

I walked over to Mimi who already had my gold pouch ready for me. I counted out ten gold and returned to Korrim with it. He quickly counted the gold before putting it in his own coin pouch. He then wrote me a handwritten receipt. "I'll have a set of drafting tools delivered here as soon as I return to the guild. Get this map copied tonight and we can finish this up quickly. Come by the cartographer's guild and I'll make sure to test you myself."

I nodded. "Sure, no problem."

Once he finished putting away his stuff he gave me a wave and headed out of the building. Once he was gone Bella sat down next to me. "Looks like that went well. Watching you work like that was impressive, you always look so happy when you're drawing."

I smiled and nodded. "I am. I love it, even more technical work like cartography involves. Do you want to draw a little together while we wait for my drafting tools to be delivered? We haven't had a chance to do any more of that since we left Goldenhearth."

Bella smiled. "Sure, I'd love to."

While the two of us started drawing with our colored chalk, I got lost in thought. I was pretty relieved with how easy all of that had been. Well, the drafting test itself wasn't easy exactly, but not having to spend a lot of time working on cartography before getting enough to satisfy Raksha'va was nice. Maybe I wouldn't be stuck here in the capital for much longer after all. There was still some stuff we're going to need to worry about in the next few days but this was a major rough spot that got laid to rest. I was one step closer to exploring more dungeons and getting the adventurer's guild off my back. Hopefully, those dungeons will go better than the last one did.