Rise of the Living Forge

Chapter 163: Representative

The following morning, when everyone had gathered in the tavern’s common room and after they’d finished breakfast, Arwin broke the news to Reya.

“I’ve got something that I could really use your help with,” Arwin said to the former thief. She glanced at him, dabbing her mouth with a napkin. They’d had spider for breakfast, which sounded like a horror story in its own, but had actually been quite pleasant. That was no surprise given who had cooked it.

“Yeah?” Reya asked. “What is it? Do you need something stolen?”

Okay, maybe former thief isn’t the right way to think about her. You can’t be former if you’re still doing it.

“No. I’d much rather you not have to steal anything,” Arwin replied. “It’s your other talents I’m hoping for. Last night, a merchant visited us. He’s one of Lillia’s old friends.”

“Seriously?” Reya asked, her eyes going wide. The meaning of Lillia having an old friend wasn’t lost on her. “Can I meet him?”

“More than that,” Arwin said. “I was hoping you might be able to teach him. When I say he’s a merchant, I should probably specify that he wants to be a merchant. He’s managed to make it this far through sheer perseverance, but he’s got absolutely no sales sense. The poor man is worse at it than I am.”

Reya sent Arwin a doubtful look. “Worse than you?”

“I have none. He has negative.”

A bit may be an understatement. He’s one of the oddest people I’ve ever met. Then again, he’s not exactly a human. Maybe Lillia is the one that’s the odd one out. She’s adapted to human culture really well. And, speaking of adapting…

“We do need to make sure he understands the proper way to treat everyone in the guild,” Arwin said with a pointed look to Lillia. “We don’t want him getting peckish.”

“Peckish?” Reya asked. “Is he also a chef or something?”

“He’s… something,” Lillia said, scrunching her nose. Olive still hadn’t been fully brought up to date on her status as the former demon queen and mentioning that Madiv was a vampire probably wasn’t a good idea. Lillia wisely avoided the topic and waved a hand dismissively. “I’ll introduce the two of you later and fill you in on everything.”

“Okay,” Reya said. “If you think I can help, then I’ll do what I can. I’m just not sure what I’ll be able to teach someone that knew you.”

“Trust me, it’ll be a lot. If he picks up on even half of what you know, you’ll have changed the trajectory of his life forever,” Arwin said with a shake of his head. It was a minor miracle that Madiv didn’t have as many enemies as Reya did.

Rodrick gathered the plates and brought them into the kitchen, then re-emerged and stretched his arms out. “Are we planning to try and go into that dungeon soon? Arwin and Reya get to do stuff in town, but I just have to sit around like a lump on a toad.”

“I think we should start preparing for it,” Arwin said. “I’d like to get a little more gear made before we go in if possible. It’s definitely a slippery slope. It would be easy to lock myself up and keep making gear because there’s always something to improve on, but that would mean I never left my smithy.”

“And that would leave us without our strongest fighter,” Anna said. “Not that we couldn’t go into the dungeon on our own, but we’d definitely be safer and able to go deeper with you at our side.”

“It’s also a great way for me to get Achievements. If I tune out the rest of the world and constantly craft, I’ll advance at a faster rate and get less supplementary bonuses in the process. I have no plans of that.” Arwin rose from his own chair. “Let’s aim for the dungeon tomorrow. Today, I’m going to try and see if I can get a piece of armor made for Anna. I doubt I’ll be able to get her a whole set, but I think we’d all be well served if our healer wasn’t quite so easy to kill.”

Anna flushed. “There’s really no—”

“I think that’s a great idea,” Rodrick said, cutting Anna off. “Because as much as she claims she’ll stay out of attention in the fights and only heal from the sidelines, that isn’t how life works out. I’d love to kit her out in full plate mail and just wheel her behind me, but that would probably be more dangerous than just going in without armor. If you can get her something that’s relatively mobile, it would mean a lot to both of us.”

“I’ll definitely do my best,” Arwin said. “I’ll just need a catalyst that embodies being light. Maybe a feather? I’m not sure yet, but I’ll aim to have something that Anna can test by the end of the day.”

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A knock on the door of the tavern interrupted their conversation. They all turned as it creaked open and Jake stepped inside. His eyes landed on Arwin and he inclined his head.

“Ah. I thought you might be here.”

“You showed up faster than expected,” Arwin said as he walked to Jake and extended a hand. The Merchant’s Guildsman shook it, then gave him an unabashed grin.

“I work fast. It helped that nobody was actually all that interested in the land you’re hoping to buy. Its value is painfully low. It’ll only be five thousand gold to buy the street outright. You’d be buying right from the city of Milten. The previous owner sold it back to them for dirt.”

Arwin winced. If Jake saw this as cheap, he really didn’t want to know how much normal land cost in Milten, much less a larger city where people were actually competing over it. Five thousand was a lot of gold, but it wasn’t beyond his means. He could earn that in just a week or two of work.

“Is there a way to make sure nobody buys it before we do?” Arwin asked. “I don’t quite have that much gold on hand.”

“Well, that’s the problem,” Jake said. “I can put in a hold order for you… but you aren’t eligible to actually buy the land.”

Arwin blinked. “What? Why not? Do I have to be a proper citizen of Milten or something along those lines?”

“No, nothing like that. It’s just that the city doesn’t sell to unrecognized individuals. There are too many logistical issues that arise from it. They’ll only sell to verified groups.”

“Like guilds?” Lillia asked.

“Yes, precisely. And that was where I was going to lead this,” Jake said with an encouraging nod. “If you’re looking to buy this much land, would I be wrong in presuming that you’re planning to form a guild?”

“We’ve got one in all but name,” Arwin said.

“Then I recommend hastening that process. I can’t help you with it directly, so I’d register yourselves and then get all of that handled. Once you’re an official guild, I’ll be able to put the order in and reserve it for you.”

Arwin chewed his lower lip. “Do you know how much it takes to get officiated as a guild in Milten? And do we need to be a ranked guild, or just a normal one?”

“Just a normal one will be more than enough,” Jake said with a wave of his hand. “It would be ludicrous to expect a newly formed guild to get ranked just to buy land. Milten doesn’t even have any ranked guilds that are based here. The closest ones were the Iron Hounds, but… well, they aren’t much of anything anymore. As for cost, I believe it was around five hundred gold.”

Another hit to the money pouch, but this one is a lot more manageable. The bigger issue is going to be actually getting the guild made, not affording it.

“That’s good to know. Thank you very much for coming to tell us,” Arwin said. He hesitated for a moment. Jake had already gone a fair bit out of his way to help them out in a timely manner, but he had to be greedy. “Is there any way you could try to make sure nobody buys that land while we get registered? I’ll head out to do it immediately, but I don’t know how long it’ll take.”

Jake pursed his lips and tapped a finger against his belt. “That’s not technically legal. There really hasn’t been anyone interested in the land for quite some time. I doubt someone will swoop out of nowhere and buy it from below your nose.”

“But what if they do?” Reya asked. She stepped up beside Arwin, her hands clasped in front of her. She swallowed nervously and looked up at Jake with watery eyes. “I don’t want to lose my home so soon after getting it again. I’d have to go back to a life that I’d really like to never think about again.”

“I—”

“This street is the only thing we’ve got,” Reya said. “You can’t make money without making enemies. If someone wants to cut us off before we can get started, they’ll buy the rights to the smithy and the tavern that we rebuilt with our own money just to screw us over. Then we’ll have to leave Milten and all our money will go to a different city. We’d have to start over.”

“Okay, okay. I get the picture,” Jake said as he raised his hands in surrender. “I can’t officially do anything, but I can pull the information on the street. It’ll make it much harder for anyone else to look into it. That won’t buy you a lot of time. A week, maybe. But if you can get your guild made by then, it should make sure you get a chance to buy the street before anyone else.”

Reya’s panic shifted to a delighted smile. “Thank you!”

Jake just shook his head. “No problem. And before I forget, as for the cost of your storefront, it’ll be 100 gold a year considering you’re selling weapons and armor. I could go into the list of reasons why if you want, but might take some time.”

Arwin held a hand up to forestall him. He dug the requested gold out of his bag and handed it over without a word.

Jake grinned and accepted it with a nod. “Thank you. If that’s all, I’ll be back on my way. I’ve got more papers to push in the office. Come find me once your guild is officiated.”

He swept out of the tavern. For a second, nobody spoke. Then they all looked to Reya. Her cheeks reddened. “What? I had to learn a lot to survive on the streets. Stealing wasn’t my only skill. Do you know how hard it is to convince merchants to give you scrap? Looking as pathetic and desperate as possible is a fine art.”

“You’re a scarily good actor,” Olive said.

“Who said I was acting?” Reya’s eyes started to water again. “What would I do if I lost this place?”

“Don’t look at me like that,” Olive begged. “I’m going to start feeling bad and I haven’t even done anything.”

They all burst into laughter, but Arwin’s amusement was short-lived. The path before them was clear. He knew exactly what they needed to do to secure the street. It was something he’d been avoiding ever since the idea of starting a guild had come to him.

“What’s wrong?” Rodrick asked, noticing the expression on Arwin’s face.

“We need to go establish the guild,” Arwin replied.

“And?” Anna asked. “What’s wrong with that?”

“I’ve never done it myself, but some of the people I once traveled with had been interested in starting a guild themselves. They never got a chance to, but I listened in on their plans.” Arwin’s face turned grim. “And I remember that the only way to officialize a guild is to speak to a representative of the Adventurer’s Guild.”