Damion turned to look at the man standing behind him, laughing at him. The man had a rough look about him with scars that started on the top of his bald head running down his face and onto his neck. Dressed in dark leather armor with an axe hanging on his waist Damion could tell this man was an experienced adventurer.
As far as Damion could remember, this man was not in the Adventurer Association yesterday. Most people had seen Damion speaking with Ethan and so they did not give him a hard time, as they assumed he was a friend or in some way related to Ethan Hoyt, whose father was a C Rank knight.
The newly arrived loudmouth had no idea, and no one seemed to be willing to inform him. Either the patrons of the Association were expecting a good show, or they were secretly hoping the loudmouth will show them how deep Damion’s connection to the Hoyt family was.
Damion ignored the man and looked at the prices of each of the kits. The basic was 1 silver, intermediate 3 silver and the advanced was 5 silver. The overall price was not much, but from what Damion had surmised from Ethan, these kits were the bare minimum of what was expected of them.
“I’ll take a basic kit please,” Damion told the clerk, ignoring the loudmouth.
The clerk took Damion’s coin and placed a small box on the counter. However, before Damion could take it, the loudmouth snatched it off the counter and started waving it in the air above his head. Damion turned and looked at the man, trying to decide the best course of action.
Damion was confident in his skills, but this person was a seasoned adventurer, and they were inside the Adventurer Association. Damion was not sure, but he was fairly confident there would be some sort of consequence for fighting in the Association. With that in mind, Damion took a bold approach to the loudmouth.
“Stealing from a fellow adventurer, in the Adventurer Association office. Bandits sure have grown bold.”
The loudmouth stopped his laughing and glared at Damion.
“Listen here you little punk,” the man said with a shove of Damion’s shoulder. “If I want something I take it and no wet-behind-the-ears rookie is going say anything about it.”
“Give him back his kit, Barnes,” the clerk behind the counter said meekly.
Barnes, however, did not seem to care what the clerk said.
“So, Barnes is it?” Damion said trying to keep his composure. “How long do you think you can run from an A Rank mage?”
“You aren’t A Rank,” Barnes scoffed.
“No, but my teacher is,” Damion said calmly. He had no issue with throwing around Ms. Teft’s reputation to get himself out of trouble. She would probably tell him off and that he needed to learn to rely on himself, but here and now, this was Damion’s only real option to get his belongings back and make this loudmouth backdown.
“Like I’m going to believe that.”
“It’s true,” the clerk behind the counter said as they pulled up the Damion’s information on their terminal screen.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
When Barnes read the screen his face paled a bit. He then dropped the basic survival kit on the ground.
“You’re lucky you aren’t worth the trouble, kid,” Barnes said as he stormed out of the Adventurer Association.
Damion collected his kit while the rest of the Association patrons looked at him in awe. They all assumed he was the one clinging to Ethan’s coattails, but now it appeared to be the other way around.
“Nice work kid, Barnes is always coming in here and bullying low rankers. He thinks that just because he’s now a member of Falks Guild he can do whatever he wants,” an adventurer called from the lounge area.
Damion had not heard of the Falks Guild before, but then that hardly surprised him. Most of the guilds he knew were the predominant guilds of the White Zones, like the Dawn Guild and the Dragon Heart Guild. He did not even know the names of the local Guilds in Saung.
Guilds, while technically beholden to the Adventurer Association, often acted completely independent of the Association's authority. The Association would send them notices of missions, but often times cities and rich families would directly employ guilds for special jobs. This gave larger guilds the ability to form political connections and influence that would help with not just in growing larger and more powerful, but also out of questionable situations.
All guilds cared about their public reputation, but beneath the surface many guilds were involved in questionable practices. Barnes backed off no doubt because he did not want to risk the Falks Guild getting involved in something that could shed light on their shadier jobs. A disagreement with an A Ranker, any A Ranker, was sure to do that. There were not so many A Rank knights or mages out there that people would miss a conflict between one and a guild.
Relieved the danger had passed, Damion took a seat in the lounge area to wait for dinner. He did not want to walk around town, just in case Barnes held a grudge and wanted to start trouble.
A few of the people in the Association tried to chat Damion up. However, when he gave simple or cryptic answers to their questions, especially questions about where he was from and who his teacher was, they gave up and left him alone. As Damion sat there in silence, he wished he had a book to read and he made a mental note to add a book, preferably something regarding Ferocious Beasts or wilderness training, to his survival kit.
When dinner came, Damion got his serving of stew and after eating he headed up to his bunk for the night. Damion slept soundly through the night and in the morning he changed into the clean set of clothes his mother had packed and headed downstairs for breakfast.
Breakfast was the same as the day before and Damion quickly ate before heading out to the check-in for the trade caravan. Damion saw Ethan standing near his father and gave him a quick wave before checking in.
“Truck 2 again, kid,” Mr. Hoyt told Damion when he checked in.
Damion quickly headed over and climbed up on the truck to await the start of the mission. As Damion looked around, he realized that there were only four trucks in the line today. Damion guessed the others were going to be used to distribute food from Bufort to the surrounding towns and villages. An escort mission for those locations had not shown up for Damion when he checked the Association mission terminal, so he rightly guessed the requirements for those missions were higher than his F Rank.
After a short time passed, Ethan climbed up to the roof of truck 2’s cab with Damion. The pair chatted for a bit before Mr. Hoyt signaled for the caravan to get moving.
“I know we aren’t here just to guard the trucks on their way back to Saung. What are we hauling today?” Damion asked Ethan.
“Goods produced in the local villages is in truck 4, truck 1 has specialty ingredients for artifacts and trucks 2 and 3 have passengers.”
“Passengers?”
“Most are refugees that have decided to relocate instead of rebuilding after the beast wave. Though some are just people that wanted to visit Saung and were willing to rough it instead of renting better transportation for the trip.”
“People save money where they can, I guess,” Damion answered. “What are the specialty ingredients in 1?”
“Ferocious Beast parts, Demonic Beast cores, rare ores. All kinds of stuff for crafting artifacts. Most of the craftsmen have left Bufort for Saung, so the Adventurer Association is shipping the bulk of their supplies over. No sense in letting it all gather dust in a warehouse.”