The Adventurer’s Guild in the city was a bit more than just an outpost. The building it occupied was so large, it encompassed the entire city block. Although everything was connected, the architecture was segmented. There was a tall tower with a clock, a large, round dome that dominated the majority of the building, a square addition, and an almost unfitting, triangular cut-in. The joined design and white walls with blue roof tiles, gave everything a roughly unified feeling.

They had went there after selling their items. The mysterious seeds had turned out to be a mix of decorative plants. They had fetched the highest price out of the bunch, with the fertility idol only getting bought by someone that thought they could carve a more beautiful face out of the piggish one. They needed to buy a few resources as well, such as a proper whetstone for Reysha’s weapons, and came out at the end with a meagre fifteen silver being added to their current wealth. It put them at a total of 1 gold 33 silver. Although they didn’t actually have a single gold coin - just a lot of silver and some copper.

They entered the guild without hesitation. Reysha had gone through a worse walk today, Aclysia had thought about this carefully enough that she felt confident, and Apexus was just done with the prey mindset. An organization was something to be afraid of, adventurer’s roughly on his level were not.

The double-doored entrance was wide open, with merry sounds of laughter greeting them when they entered. Smelling of beer, wine, and roasted meat, the tavern so commonly found in the entrance halls of the guild was filled with business. Parties sat around tables and used the lack of structured working hours in their profession to get boozed up shortly after noon. Others were having a sober discussion over water and a proper meal to decide where they should go next. Yet others were simply sitting around and waiting for something.

There were about fifty people in the room, separated into eight parties of three to seven members and a few people that weren’t part of any firmly established group. The tables and benches they sat on were expertly crafted wood, dented with years of usage, while the ground was cobbled stone.

There were three separate counters in different areas of the room. At the left-hand side, leading towards the tower, was the guild’s mission counter. The female receptionist standing there oversaw the blackboard and checked what missions locals offered. For the regular adventurer, there was a bit more to do than just delve into dungeons. The second counter was the bar, stocked with several large barrels of alcohol. Behind it, a doorway led towards the rectangular segment. Lastly, in front of the path to the triangular area, was the guild store.

The person manning it looked at them expectantly, hoping for another lazy party to sell their loot under value to them, so they could make an easy profit later. That was the only concentrated attention the party got as they entered. Although they looked a tad weirder than the average adventurer, the three were far from the only exotic ones around. Animal ears and unusual hair colours were scattered about and one of the Warriors wore a cursed glove that had fused to her arm.

Apexus and his party were taken note of as newcomers, but ignored otherwise. Even as they made their way to the guild reception, all that happened was that the store owner clicked their tongue and went back to reading a book they had brought.

Finding all of this fascinating, the slime hadn’t been inside many buildings and especially not one this large, Apexus kept looking around. His hair brushed against the inside of his hood repeatedly, which was slightly bothersome. Especially with black fox ears being right there, noticing every sound. He made a mental note to grow his hair out later, just so he didn’t have to wear the hood anymore when visiting cities. Once he had a nose to complete his face, he wouldn’t have to keep either the hood or mask on anymore.

“Hello,” the female receptionist exclaimed in a cheery fashion. She was an elf, about a head shorter than Apexus and of a lithe build. Blonde hair and pale skin made her visibly different from all of the wood elves that dominated the demographics of the spring areas of the Leaf. “How may I be of service?”

Aclysia stepped forwards, taking her usual role of lead conversationalist “We would like to inquire if you have a monster compendium inside your archives and, if so, may we have access to it.”

“Yes we do, and maybe you can. Are you a member of the local guild branch?” the receptionist asked, which Aclysia had to deny. “We only allow members access to the archives. Sorry, but letting unknown freelancers in is a bit risky. If you have any specific information requests, I may be able to find what you’re searching, for a fee of one silver – or you can pay the two silver for this month’s membership.”

“We are looking for a kind of monster or animal that has a heated core,” Aclysia responded. As far as potential obstacles went, this was one they had expected.

“Oh, want to get the ingredients to an alchemist to make some Warmth Potions?”

That was not the excuse the metal fairy had prepared. Her story would have been that they got a mission to find something like that from an odd, out of Leaf merchant they met at the Stem city. Unsure whether she should go with her original lie orwith this new one, she wasn’t sure about. It sounded more convenient, but it may have been a trap. Her overthinking mind was only halfway through analysing this when Apexus simply answered, “Yes.”

“Standard stuff, give me a second,” the receptionist quickly vanished behind the backdoor.

“What if that was a trap?” Aclysia quietly whispered.

“She doesn’t have predator eyes,” Apexus responded just as quietly. “Nothing to fear from her.”

“Alrighty, so,” the receptionist came back quickly and waved around a rolled-together scroll. “This here contains the details about every ingredient needed to make Warmth Potions and where to find them. You’ll still need an alchemist to put the things together correctly, but it’ll cut the costs tremendously if you make them yourself. Especially if you do it before you head down to White Ice.” She put the scroll on the counter and leaned forwards in a jokingly conspiratorial fashion, “Supply, demand, you know how it is. Colder it gets, the more people buy that stuff.” She straightened back up. “Now, for four silver, you can have the scroll. For one silver, you can read it through once. For two silver, you can buy the membership and read it whenever you want alongside other benefits such as-“

“We’ll buy the scroll,” Apexus interrupted.

“Alrighty!” the cheery receptionist immediately stopped. “Four silver please.”

“Affirmative,” Aclysia responded, while reaching for the group’s purse. Coins hit the counter and the receptionist reached for them.

Apexus quickly put his hand over the coins. “Let us see the scroll first.” His deep, decisive voice made the statement one of threatening totality. Realizing this in the way the receptionist’s eyes widened, the slime added, “Please?” in a tone as friendly as he could make it.

“Uhm,” the receptionist cleared her throat and resumed her friendly chatter. “Sure, sure. Can’t let you read it though.”

“That’s fine,” Apexus answered. “I just want to verify it’s not useless.”

The cord keeping the rolled-up paper sealed was unmade and showed a long list of several items. After about three seconds, Apexus nodded and lifted his hand. The receptionist took the money, Apexus took the scroll and then they awkwardly looked at each other for several seconds. “Can I help you with something else?” the receptionist asked.

Apexus looked to Aclysia. Aclysia looked back. Reysha leaned against the counter and gave the fairy an amused smirk. “The map, bubble butt.”

“Oh,” Aclysia’s brain shook off the remaining surprise and turned back to the receptionist. “I would like to inquire whether or not you have any maps of the Myrm Nest dungeon.”

“No, we don’t… you won’t need one either,” the blonde elf assured them. “It’s a large downwards spiral. Can’t exactly get lost in there. I do have a strategy guide for it though. Would you like that?”

After their Myrlight experience, the group was very happy to buy anything that told them what kind of monsters to expect inside a dungeon. After the Myrm Nest guide, they also bought one for the Drowned Altar and White Ice. There was a map available for the Drowned Altar as well, which was nice, but not for White Ice, due it being a dungeon whose layout shifted. The Long Way had neither a strategy guide nor a map available for it.

In total, they paid thirty silver for the information they bought. With everything they could want cleared, they headed for the exit. They stopped shortly before the door, when an adventurer stepped in their way. She was a tall wood elf, with dark hair and blue eyes. “Yo, want to hire some help?” she asked. “My usual party is out of town for a while, so I’d be happy to get something done in the meantime.”

Apexus looked at her. She was pretty. Her skin was lighter than that of other wood elves, but still noticeably brown. Her dark red lips were curved into a charming smile and the dark green outfit she wore clung tightly to her. On her slender body, her large breasts stood out quite a bit.

“No, thank you,” the slime responded. “We’re good.”

“Ah, pity then,” she sighed and let them pass without further inquiry. She returned to her seat to offer her services to some other party that seemed to have lucrative plans. Apexus, meanwhile, led his party out of the building.

Once outside, the trio went to a quiet corner nearby to read the scroll. There was a description of some herbs that grew on different parts of the Leaf, certain animal innards that could be used or what they could be substituted by and finally the ingredient they were actually looking for.

As they had theorized, there was a monster in the volcano area that had an organ providing heat. It was useless as a biological adaptation, living where it was, the hottest would more than likely cause a creature to be less reliant on its own body temperature, but the gods seldomly cared for logic when they put specific enemies somewhere. In most regards, the gods were happy to just throw a few basic animals into the wild and let them sort out the ecosystem among themselves. At other times, they decided: “this goes here!” and disregarded logic. Because they were placed there by divine will, even if they were somehow unsuccessful in the environment or hunted to extinction, they would be back.

In this specific case, they were looking at a so-called Azenian Volk Dragon, or Volcano Tearer, as they were more commonly named. Much like Ctania’s Forester Dragon, it actually wasn’t a true dragon. They were a bit more closely related, with their capacity to breathe fire and the amount of magic pumping through their veins, but far from the intelligent and legendary lizard. They could just barely qualify as drakes, being large, scaled beasts with a bit of intelligence and magic. No wings though, which the group read about on the informal paper.

“Whoever wrote this has an interesting style,” Apexus said.

“Really?” Reysha asked. “I don’t think ‘the Azenian Volk Dragon is most commonly found east of the central volcano. Thanks to it\'s smoke-breathing, they are easy to spot from a distance. Furthering this is their tendency to claw at mountainsides and unearth magma veins, earning them the name Volcano Tearer. It is advised to approach in a group of four or more, with adventurers of level 13 or higher.’ Is interesting writing.”

“It’s about the letters,” Apexus elaborated. “All of the same kind have the exact same look.”

“Yeah, ‘cause it’s printed,” Reysha responded.

“Printed?” Apexus asked.

“You carve the shape of the letter into wood or something else, wet it with ink and press it on the paper,” Aclysia explained. “It is a common technique to copy more regularly sold informal pieces. It makes the article cheaper and quicker to produce.”

“Why don’t they print the maps then?” Apexus wanted to know.

“It is highly likely that they do, but the result would not be as detailed as hand drawn maps.”

“Dunno, maybe they got really good ones around here,” Reysha scratched her head. “Haven’t been to a lot of Leaves yet, but technology levels kind of vary.”

“If they were highly developed and readily available on this Leaf, the map would have been cheaper,” Aclysia asserted. “Whatever may be the case, as long as printing cannot infuse parchment with magic, it will remain inferior to Scribes in all important ways.”

“Printing… interesting,” Apexus wanted to see one of those presses, but now wasn’t the time. “Level thirteen being recommended means that it might yield a permanent Growth. That’s useful.” He pivoted back to their original topic.

“We’re under the recommended party size,” Aclysia pointed out.

“We’ll figure something out,” Reysha grinned. “Hunting is what we’re best at. Let’s get-a-going.”