Chapter 83

The five of us went back to the inn and fell right back to sleep after our dinner and ice cream treat. We were still plenty tired from everything we did the previous night and I didn't argue with the idea of letting my muscles rest some more. Thankfully, all five of us were able to get up early the next morning without any issue.

The sun was barely rising by the time the four of us plus Mimi stepped out of the inn. I squeezed the comfortable grip of Mimi's hilt as my eyes adjusted to the morning light. The Tamin church showing up really soured this place and I now really wanted to be out of town while they were doing whatever it was they were doing here. I would be dumb to think there wouldn't be more of them in the capital but at least this way they might be too distracted to bother with us.

There was quite a bit of early morning bustle as people opened their shops or walked to their jobs. The adventurer's guild in particular was busier than I had ever seen it. Not surprising considering we usually avoided the early morning rush. When we entered we got in the relatively long line but only stood there for a few minutes before a receptionist pulled us out of line and told us to go upstairs to wait for the guild master.

The large Tigerkin woman sat down at her usual spot at the end of the table carrying a few things. The first and most obvious thing was the clink of money she sat on the table, as well as a few files and a sealed envelope.

"Good, I'm happy I didn't need to wait for you. Now that the Tamin church can't deny your story of involved demons, they approved your destruction of the dungeon. If anyone who knows about your title asks, you can say the Tamin church approved your destruction of the dungeon in a [Zone of Truth], they're known for being very wary of dungeon destroyers and they typically hate beastkin so anyone willing to go that far will likely believe your side of the story at that point."

She pushed the bag of coins towards me. "This is your payment for the original job you sighed up for, the bounty for discovering a dungeon, and the bounty for destroying a dungeon spawning demons. Rounded up, the reward is 50 gold pieces. You'll also get credit from the guild for those quests. Congratulations, the four of you have ranked up to Iron tier adventurers," she said casually without any fanfare.

I took the bag of coins and slipped it into my backpack.

"As for your trip to the capital, if you'd like to go right now I can arrange you a ride within a bell. Take this letter of introduction and meet with Korrim of the Capital's cartography guild. Just tell the receptionist you have a letter of introduction and hand it off to them. You don't look stupid but I'll remind you not to break the seal. The cartography guild will bill the adventurer's guild directly, don't let anyone trick you into paying twice. Now, do you want to travel as passengers or as guards? I can do either and I don't really care either way to be honest."

"We'll take the job as guards," I said.

She handed me the letter. "Good, that will make it easier. You'll be set as support for a group of steel adventurers then, just follow their orders and help with watches." Her eyes glanced at the servant's collars the twins wore. "Don't let them intimidate you into sharing your servants as bed slaves. If they have a problem with that tell them guild master Raksha'va put you on this mission herself. That will shut anyone up, I promise."

"Thank you guild master, that's reassuring. We need to take care of a couple things before we leave town, shouldn't take more than a bell..."

"That's fine, I'll tell someone to make them wait for you. Just don't take all day. Everyone should be happy about you joining them, I'll be paying for your trip myself. Think of it as paid training."

"Sounds good," I said.

"Great." She clapped her hands and stood up before gathering the rest of the files she brought with her. "Fucking paperwork," she said under her breath as she left the room.

The four of us laughed before leaving the room after her.

After leaving the guild we went back to our room at the inn and double checked we had everything before checking out and paying off our tab. While I was there I had Mimi take 30 of the gold we just received leaving me with 40, Mimi with 50, and Bella with 5. Bella didn't want to hold onto any more money, she kept saying it would be safer with me than with her. I wasn't super convinced but it didn't seem worth arguing over. From what I've been told slaves aren't allowed to own any kind of property so they can't hold onto much money but giving them each an allowance was permittable most places. I gave them each 50 silver, the most I could without people complaining. Next up was to go back to the Mousekin's shop to see what Meena wanted us to do for her.

It was still early but luckily they were already open. There was noise from the back of the shop, likely Twill starting the forge. Meena was sweeping in front of the shop presumably before customers came to visit, not that I had ever seen any. She smiled brightly as the four of us walked up.

"Good morning! Did you need something else?" She seemed excited to see us.

"Yeah we're leaving for the capital today and you asked us if we wanted to do a job for you on the way right?"

"Oh yes! Come inside and I'll tell you about the details."

We followed in the short mousekin girl inside, who turned to lock the door behind us before heading into the back room. We followed over to the counter. It felt a little weird to be locked in but it's not like she was holding us captive. A couple minutes later she came back and set a sturdy looking wooden box on the counter.

"I want you to deliver this to our cousin who works in the capital." She unlocked the box and opened it revealing some kind of metal ore that I didn't recognize. Once the box opened though, the area around the box suddenly looked weird though. Like there was a small mirage in front of it.

"What is it?" I asked.

"We're not completely sure, but the two of us think it's Mithril ore."

Morrigan was suddenly intrigued and stepped up to take a closer look.

"Why are you asking us to deliver it?"

Meena scratched the back of her head. "Well... Mithril is very valuable and we think we may have discovered a mine. The land it's on is unclaimed, which is good, unfortunately we don't have the money to pay for it yet. If you take this sample to our cousin in the capital, she could verify it's real and get us a favorable loan. The reason we need you to deliver this sample is that raw Mithril ore can be very conspicuous to mages or anyone with mana sight. Since you have access to spatial magic, you could deliver it without anyone noticing."

"Not to suggest that we would do this but what's to stop us from just running off with your sample?" I asked.

She frowned. "I would have to contact the adventurer's guild and report you disappeared with the delivery. They would track you down and see what happened. Other than that, it's a risk we have to take. It would be unfortunate but we can get another sample. The four of you seem trustworthy though and despite my initial reservations you have been nothing but a pleasure to work with despite any animosity our peoples may have had in the past," she said glancing at Torien before looking back at me. "But I trust you, I wouldn't have offered the job if I didn't."

I looked back at my party. "Is everyone okay with taking this job?" I asked. Everyone nodded and I felt a pulse of indifference from Mimi though our bond. I turned back to Meena. "Looks like we're in agreement, we'll take the job. What are we doing about the pay?"

She hesitated. "Here's the thing. We don't really have the money to pay you upfront, BUT my cousin can give you 20% of the ore's market value after appraisal. She'll be able to pay you for it, no problem. Just deliver this box and this letter and she'll sort it out."

I looked at Torien who nodded back to me. "It's probably worth it."

I turned back to Meena. "Okay, sounds like a deal. Let me make sure I'll be able to store it."

"Perfect, let me just lock this box back up." She locked the box and pushed it towards me, making no motion to hand over the key with it.

-- "Mimi, I know you said something about density and weight being an issue, will you be able to hold on to this?" --

Mimi was silent for a moment before replying. -- "It'll be a tight fit, but I can do it. I won't be able to store anything else until I level up more though." --

I stuck my hand on the box. -- "That's fine. Go ahead and store it." --

The box with the contained ore dissolved into magic particles and flowed into Mimi in her sword form on my belt.

Meena then handed me a letter. "Take this to Tenna who works at Gordian Smithy in the capital. She'll be able to have it appraised, pay you, and if all goes well have you send us a return letter."

"Is she a mousefolk?" I asked.

Meena nodded and slid an adventurer's guild form over for me to sign. "Yes, she looks very similar to me but she's a smith like Twill. She'll be able to recognize it right away if it truly is Mithril and has the contacts to have it properly appraised."

"Okay. Then here's hoping for good news." I slid the form back over once I finished with it. "I'll see you later, say goodbye to Twill for me."

"Sure thing!" she said with a bright smile.

After all that we left the shop since we didn't really need to buy anything else. We stopped at the guild store one last time to make sure we were completely covered on our camping gear. We bought a few basics and headed back to the guild to meet the people we would be travelling with.

I had mixed feelings when I saw who waved us over.

"Lilith! I was happy to hear it was you who would be joining us!" A very animated Elf, Tarklin Silvergrove, greeted us as we walked up to the dozen people that were sitting around a table.

Torien started snickering behind me and I flushed a tiny bit in embarrassment. Why did I have to tell her about his proposition.

His brows furrowed when he looked at Bella. "Are you feeling better? You were rather out of sorts on our way back yesterday."

Bella smiled. "Yes I'm feeling a lot better today thanks."

He nodded solemnly. "The life of a healer isn't always easy. However I like many others appreciate the trials you face."

I felt a wave of relief wash through our bond when she realized his misunderstanding.

"It isn't always easy but I want to help others whenever I can," Bella replied.

"A noble goal." He turned back to me. "Let me introduce you to everyone."

We spent the next fifteen minutes meeting and chatting with all of the other people in the group of people that would be escorting a small caravan of merchant wagons. From what I could gather, the merchants had skimped out on the number of people that would be guarding the six wagons in the group. The four of us being added last minute, free of charge, by the guild master was a blessing to the group since they would have much more leeway when rotating shifts. It apparently made the job much more palatable for everyone. The guild master gave our pay to Tarklin to pay out at the end of the trip if we pull our weight.

At about a bell after we met with the guild master and were finally signaled to go meet with the merchants.

We were finally leaving Traehall.