A Labyrinthian Contract ● Loki, Hime, Song, Inkormine

Job Info:

It was a cold day on the top of the mountain, the snow outside having already stacked a little higher than usual with the snowstorm in full swing around the guild hall of Silver Wolf. The building, surrounded by its dome of magic however, was still very much functioning, aside from the usual thin layer of white, frozen flakes providing a warm shelter for the magi of the guild. Aspen, one of the very recent additions to this group of like minded men and women that dedicated their live to the exploration, understanding and research of magic, was sitting in a corner of the guilds cafeteria, a steaming cup of dark liquid in a cup before her, she still hadn't gotten used to this drink the people of Fiore called "coffee", simultaneously refreshing, comforting and revitalizing, especially in the morning. Was this perhaps some sort of magic too ? In the Kingdom of Pergrande, far to the north, they did not possess such a magnificent thing. The best she had ever gotten to drink were the endless amounts of cheap distilled beverages made from potatoes or corn, strongly alcoholic however, and that once cup of tea she had when she was younger. Her parents had bought it on the black market and brought it home. It had been bitter, much like this drink before her right now, but it was different. If this drink was supposed to give your energy, she though, tea must've been designed to do the exact opposite, calm the mind and give you a sense of inner peace. Reminiscing about this ... it brought Aspen's thoughts back to her parents. Her father, with his dark, tired eyes, but always wearing a smile, and her mother, who always had tried her best to take care of her. They both did. "Wretched fools", she couldn't help but say to herself in her head. If they had really wanted to take care of her they would have been more careful. Buying things on the black market for example made you an easy target for the inquisition. They had vanished a few months after. She sighed. Don't think about Pergrande, Aspen, don't think about it, you're gone now. They're far away ... so, so far away.

This was her life now. No longer would she be a Paladin of the Knights of Pergrande. She would be a mage, she would be part of a guild, she would do jobs and get paid and sleep in a warm bed and eat good food. It was foolish to think she alone could change Pergrande, so leaving it behind, leaving behind the place of her origin, the place where she had spent most of her life would be her only viable option. She would become stronger, she would become a capable mage, and they would have no other option than to respect her independence, no matter who would challenge it. The first step she had taken towards that goal was to actually define her magic, create spells, weapons, concepts for herself to use with her Iron Key. The second step she had taken was becoming a Dragon Slayer. From what she had read in the many sleepless nights spent in Silver Wolf's extensive library, Dragon Slayer magic was among the strongest out there, yet ... she had felt not much of a difference as of yet, magically at least, safe for her vastly heightened senses of hearing, sight and smell. Her body was different. Where she hadn't been the strongest physical fighter before, she now felt the strength pumping through her veins with every beat of her heart, but ... magic ? That was an entirely different thing. Clumsy, like beginners tended to be, but with direction, she was confident that she could make something out of what she had ... for the time being though ? She needed practice. Lots of it. Preferably soon. Whenever she thought about using Metal Dragon Slayer magic the tips of her fingers started to itch. She was hungry for a mission, and not just for a mission either. She had spent pretty much all of her jewels on the materials she had needed for the creation of the Dragon Slayer lacrima, for anything other than the three daily meals at Silver Wolf, travels and so on she could use the reward from a mission.

Thus, it happened that Aspen had decided that today would be the day to take on her first official job as a guild member of Silver Wolf, the guild mark now shining on her left hand in its bright turquoise colour. Sipping the last bit of her coffee, the girl stood up, heading straight for the exit from the cafeteria and towards the ominous job board where, as she had learned, various clients would put up missions and contracts for the guild members to pick and choose from, separated into different categories and ranks. Her eyes wandering over the different pieces of paper with a diverse range of colours,  pictures and descriptions she stood there for a good couple of minutes, reading, looking at rewards and trying to assess her own skills and strengths versus what the job would ask until, almost mysteriously, her eyes stopped on a piece of paper at the corner of the large board. Had it been there the entire time ? Internally, she shrugged, getting closer and inspecting it thoroughly. Some client had a death wish, it seemed, but, admittedly, she was more than intrigued, especially at the mention of the reward and the possibility of exploration. Perhaps she could find out more about magic of old that hadn't been discovered yet and that she could use in the creation of new magic weaponry ? "In any case, it will help me get stronger", she thought to herself, while in actuality the job was a little out of her range as far as rank went, though the proud Aspen would have never admitted it. With that, she reached for the contract on the board to rip it off and officially accept it.

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Word Count: 1.016
Word Count Total: 1.016 / 4.800

Inkormine was just entering the Silver Wolf guild hall, closing the door of the hall to prevent the extra energetic cotton sky water flakes from getting on more then they had too. There was a storm going on outside the hall, but instead of being all scratchy and making it impossible to see, it was all white puffs and cold... and still almost impossible to see. Getting back to the guild hall would have been a challenge if one of those spirit wolves hadn't shown up and given him a point in the right direction. Luckily this 'snow' stuff wasn't what the ground was made of, it just covered the ground. With solid ground under the powder, traversing it had been easy. Yes, he'd picked up the word snow while he was out! He'd asked while he was in Tolgalen, and ended up reading a little book on weather and other stuff on the trip back to Fiore. He'd bought it with some of the money the jerk in the bar from his first job out had paid, so he could keep it with him. Never knew when you could use something like that, plus he might not be the only one in the guild who didnt know this stuff. Although he didn't know that this exact book was sitting in a tucked away corner of the guild library and he could have looked at it anytime from here.

Book aside, at least he was out of that miserable cold! Even with his extra warmth he'd still been feeling some chill from that wind. But in here was a lot better, no wind, no snow except what he'd dragged in here and was shaking off in the little space next to the door for snow. Just generally a much better time. But again, the moment he'd gotten within a certain distance of the guild hall everything had mellowed down a lot like there was a barrier there. Which, if his magic sense was any good, there was. But some snow and wind still got through it, it was odd that the barrier was designed to allow that. Oh well, he was no expert on large barrier design or any of those writing magics, but all the magics had some kind of logic backing them, so it had to have a reason. Then again, plants thrived in their environments, you couldnt grow cabbage in the farms around his home city, they'd die from lack of water and the heat in moments. So the plants likely thrived in the snow and low temperatures.

Inky's stomach growled a little at him as he stepped onto the carpetted floor, no longer snow covered. That made sense, the snowstorm had been bothering him and climbing a mountain was tiring work at the best of times, even for a spider person like him. Going up was hard even if you treated it like basically flat terrain, at least when you were going up for miles. But, the guild hall had a cafeteria, and if he remembered there was a job board in there too so he could look for anything interesting while he ate. He couldn't exactly sit at a table very easily after all, not the ones here. He went walking over to the guild hall cafeteria, looking forward to getting something to eat... and smacked a leg on the desk near the door. He grimaced and tried not to do more then grunt at the echoing 'Thunk' of wood on carapace, but that still stung. He understood why the guild hall was so dim, but still! He was going to have to figure out a way to not run into stuff in here.

Entering the cafeteria showed it was pretty empty. You could probably seat something like thirty people in here if you wanted too, but right now there were only three, one in the back corner with a book and a mug, another drinking something out of a bowl he could see steaming from all the way over here with a guild symbol on their hand, and one by the job board, looking over the jobs there, or so it appeared. He quietly went over to the counter, pulling up his sleeves and nabbing a tasty looking sandwich and cup, the guild mark on his arm having finally stopped giving off that weird glow he'd been dealing with for a bit, but now that it was showing he got to not get his sleeves dirty and the cook behind the counter didn't have to say anything about a possible non-guild member grabbing food without paying. Everyone wins! Then he went over to near the job board, not wanting to pester the person already there looking at jobs, starting in on his sandwich.

He got through most of the sandwich when the person leaned in, inspecting a smaller job slip at the bottom corner of the board. Sticking the last bite of the sandwich into his mouth, Inkormine looked over there as well. The print was pretty small so he did need to take a step closer too look, but i seemed... unusual. Exploration underground seemed neat but why would a client offer a wizard guild a significant amount of jewel as a reward for... dying? Honestly that made the job very unusual among the ones on the board, and that made him curious enough on its own. Although it was an underground labyrinth, which meant dark. But it wasn't like he couldn't make light, he just didn't here in the guild hall so it didn't cause any problems in case the guild lighting was more then a stylistic and economical choice. The woman in front of the board, now that he'd recognized her build, was reaching for the job now, prompting Inkormine to speak. "Would you object to any help on that job? I'm curious, and it doesn't say only one wizard." But wait, did it have to specify a number of wizards or else it could be as many as were interested? Or was it supposed to only be one wizard unless it said otherwise?! Hopefully the former or else he was going to look kind of dumb in a second.

Word Count (Current Post): 1,039
Word Count Total: 1,039/4,800
HP: 300-5 (Desk Whack) = 295

Song had spent a lot of the blizzard on the ceiling of the cafeteria. The morning had started with her trying to face the cold the same way she had faced so much in life. That she had found out was a bad idea, this was why she had ended up retreating to back inside of the guild hall. This didn't mean she had given up though, not by a long shot! It had only meant that she had ended up eating some curried potatoes and eggs with a glass of water as her morning breakfast. This lead to her going up the ceiling of the room she ate in, deciding to create a defense against the piles of snow for herself. This ended up with the little desert warrior arachnid having spent hours on the ceiling on the cafeteria working on weaving for herself some gear that she could wear in the cold. By the time she had finished, it seemed hours had already passed and a small group of people had gathered at the job board. Ah! She didn't know most of those people, but she knew one. It was her brother back from wherever he went to. Who were the others? She heard someone say Aspen, her brothers name, and Loki... Now if only she knew which name belonged to which person. Oh well, she would probably find out soon enough. The tiny spider held on to her bundle of clothing, stuffing them into a bag before starting to go quietly towards the wall. Once there she silently slunk her eight legs. She didn't stop until near the job board, moving her torso a bit so her free hand could touch the listing that was getting so much attention.

"A labyrinth?" The girl ended up becoming quickly interested. "I wonder if you learn the runes if you can make walls in buildings unbreakable, or if you need special ingredients." For a small moment, the sand child had forgotten others were also at the job board. The paper was still covered by her hands, but those bind eyes of hers seemed very focused at it. "I wanna do this, I wanna explore and fight and poke." It was around that time that song finally remembered that others were there. She took a few steps back up the wall, taking her hand off the paper. "Sorry, I got a little caught up in reading it. Everyone seemed so curious so I got curious. My names Song Talea! Uh, I was just quiet making clothes so I could go in the big snow attack without getting super cold." Somehow she was starting to feel that talking to people while standing on a wall probably wasn't the best way to communicate. With that in mind, her many spider limbs moved along. She walked in a bit of an arch in order to avoid walking on the job board, eventually doing a small jump. With the jump down, she was officially standing on the floor. The young girls hair seemed in fine shape, likely due to how short it was. Now that she was on the floor, it was safe to do her excited leg movements... because doing that on a wall would cause her to fall off.

Words: 546

About to go for the little piece of paper and rip it from the job board, Aspen was suddenly startled by the sudden ringing of a voice beside her. How this enhanced hearing worked exactly she'd still have to get used to. Turning her head, her arm frozen mid motion she stared, her gaze falling upon what could only be described as a ... well, spider man ? Aspen was more than just a little surprised. She had never seen anything like this, and the towering presence that had approached her not only had shifted her attention from the piece of paper, but also left her speechless for a few moments, her amber eyes simple gazing up and down the strange sight. In her time she had spent in Pergrande and with the Paladins, all her life pretty much, she had never seen anything that even came close for this ... well, except for the monsters from Sin, but they weren't quite as, well, articulate as this man. Also, it appeared like the spider person was a guild member, bearing the mark of Silver Wolf on his right arm. In any case, she only now realized that she had been spoken to, and scrambled to respond, still evidently quite confused. "O-oh, uhm, H-hello. I- I don't believe we have met. Sorry, I think I'm-"

Her sentence was cut short by the arrival of another man, who, with casual gesture of greeting, made his entrance, inquiring about the job that Aspen was still reaching for. In truth, the man seemed more, uhm, "normal" to the girl than the spider person, but was there even such a concept as "normal" in this country that was called Fiore ? She had the feeling that that was not the case, at least judging from the experience he had gathered wandering the place. Anything, she thought, was possible in this strange country of magic. "Uhm, well, I took at a look at this job here, but-", her sentence once again cut short.

This time, a female voice shouted, the sound amplified by her slayer senses ringing a little in her ears. Well, how would she expect others to know and be considerate if she hadn't told anyone about her experiments with the Dragon Slayer lacrima and her becoming a Slayer of the second generation herself. The thing that most bothered her though ... was the fact that the girl knew her name, and that she did not know hers. She had at least tried to be a little reclusive, not least because the Paladins might still keep their eyes open, and because as it stood, she knew nobody from Silver Wolf save for the man named Deshi and the blonde woman that called herself Leona and had introduced herself as ace, though she was still quite unsure what that actually meant. The girl had probably picked it up from one of those, or from someone that it had been passed on to. "Excuse me, I don't believe we've met. Who are you ?", asking the girl with the orange hair, her amber eyes staring at her intently.

As if fate played a joke on her and didn't want her to catch a breath to collect her thoughts and gain an overview of the situation, behind her rang out another voice. Turning once again, she stared into 4 blank orbs, immediately overtaken by confusion again, an eyebrow raised, her mouth slightly open. Did these people smell when someone tried to take on a job or what ? And more importantly ... this girl was sitting on the wall ! Another spider person ? Could they possibly have something to do with each other ? How the hell was she reading the job when she seemed blind ? Maybe the spider girl that introduced herself as Song only appeared blind ? There was no Braille on the contract. In any case, she was talking a little too much for Aspen's taste, a little too, well, enthusiastic, but it couldn't be helped. There would be a lot of fighting on this job in any case, she figured, so more people wouldn't be a bad idea. And who knew ? Maybe it would provide a good opportunity to get better acquainted with her new guild mates. Taking the piece of paper into her hand and ripping it from the board with a determined motion of her hand, she turned to her guildmates around. "I'm sorry, I haven't had the time to get to know you all. I'm Aspen, nice to meet you. And, uhm, I'm indeed looking for assistance with this rather strange contract, so I'd be more than happy for anyone who wants to accompany me to the Ancient Ruins to do so.", forcing herself to give a weak smile that seemed somewhat off on her normally expressionless face. "Do you all know what this is about ?" holding up the piece of paper and showing it around "I admit, it seems rather strange, but ... I'm very intrigued. That being said ..." she perhaps skipped a few steps, but was admittedly excited to take on her first job as a mage, "... let's get going !".

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Word Count: 869
Word Count Total: 1.885 / 4.800

Okay good! Aspen's response showed that at least he hadn't totally misinterpreted the guild job thing. Of course this didn't help the accidental shock factor of a spider person suddenly confronting you about a job you wanted to do in the guild hall you thought was going to be mostly empty. But Ink didn't think about it that way at all, he was used to humans around, and besides he saw her little jump. He had scared her! Well, no wonder, he supposed. He was much larger then her, but she had to have heard him coming, right? He hadn't really been silent about it. But then her jump had been familiar in a way too. Almost like the times he'd accidentally spoken too loudly around Song, nearly making her drop what she'd been holding because he'd been too loud. He'd had no idea she had such strong hearing, but suddenly there were others coming in before he could even try to apologize so he shelved that for later.

The arrival of a man asking about the job started the rush, or rather asking about if there were any interesting jobs. Yes, that man started the rush, it definitely wasn't Inkormine approaching and surprising the poor woman. Now what turned that around and surprised him was when a voice addressed them all by name, including him. A voice he didn't know in the slightest! Why would she know his name? Him, the big spider guy who had joined recently and was pretty unique, only really shared by his sister Song for odd factor- Speak of the sibling! He looked up at a glimpse of motion to see an arm sliding around the board to feel out the job, followed an instant later by Song, checking out the same job apperantly! Moments ago the cafeteria had been empty and this group just formed out of nowhere.

Inky tried to step out of the little group without accidentally bumping anyone, the wall was a little too far away for him to use without bumping anyone though. So he tried to just sort of slip out of the group so he could move a little more freely. "I haven't met you either, miss..?" He said, politely, to the orange haired woman, as he shifted a little on his legs, looking at the new arrivals that had shown up here. It was a diverse little group. "My apologies, miss Aspen, I did not mean to startle you a moment ago. I would still like to join you though, this job seems intriguing." Inkormine said to Aspen as she was starting to leave already, sidestepping with a little rumble of steps as he got a little closer to Song. "Hey there Song." He said, smiling a bit as he saw her little movements. Seemed she was quite interested in this job too. He started to follow Aspen though, he didn't exactly know where these 'Ancient Ruins' were.