Seth Chapter 75

Chapter 75

“Like I was saying— Agh! It's hot!” Seth hurriedly drank a glass of water as the Everwood Boar steak burned his tongue due to how hot it was.

Smoke rose out of the sizzling steak as he cooled down his tongue.

“You should take your time. It's not going anywhere,” Rebecca said, taking spoonfuls of a hot stew. They had ordered tons of food from stew, steak, bread and other dishes. “We can even call for more food if you want. Just eat slowly.”

“Thanks,” he said, blowing up into the steak before eating it. “Anyway, how are we planning to find adventurers to take back to the ruins?”

They couldn't just take just any party since the area they were moving to would be unexplored. Lots of people wouldn't think twice about it due to the lure of the treasures, but it also meant that the greed might get to them.

If he could, he wanted to go with someone trustworthy.

“I need to put in a request and then, the Guild would tell us the relevant parties that are willing to come with us. We can look through them and can pay them a certain fee or part of the spoils. Since they are bound by the Guild, not a lot of them would try anything funny and if the contractor dies in the ruins, a harsh investigation always takes place, so not a lot of people try to act scheemy.” She frowned in the end. “At least, until we pay them well.”

“We can pay them part of the spoils,” he said. “We just need the Weather Staff. Any other artifacts would be good, but there weren't any in the rooms. The most valuable things were gold coins and statues.”

“Yes, we can share it with them, and make it a rule that we would keep the artifacts.”

“Sounds good.”

They both ate their food in silence after that, talking from time to time about the golems and ways they could deal with them. Also, about the kind of party they should go for.

Around them, lots of adventurers and people associated with the academy sat, eating tons of tasty meat dishes with bottles of wine and beer. Rows of laughter would erupt from time to time, but it didn't bother Seth and Rebecca.

“I think a part of five should be good. There's three golems we need to deal with and four can take on the two, and we can deal with the one in the centre,” Rebecca said, putting a finger on her chin.

“Ideally, a party with frontline warriors is what we need. You are there for barriers, so we would need two warriors, an archer possibly with arrows that would be effective against golems and maybe, a scout who could help us with the traps. Also, a mage with offensive abilities would be quite handy.”

He listed down classes one after another. He knew his void powers won't work well against them and he could only chip away parts of the rock with his blade, but explosions or blunt weapons should work wonders.

They were also slow, so they could be deceived.

“We could list down all the classes we want and hand them over to the clerk at the reception. They should find us someone by tomorrow morning since people are always looking for work,” she said and finished up a bowl of salad she was munching on.

Suddenly, she stopped drinking on a glass of beer and looked at Seth with unease in her eyes.

Noticing it, he asked, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I'm. It's just I don't know if it's a good idea to head back there. We need the Weather Staff, but that place is dangerous and creepy. We also don't know who unleashed the lesser abyssal horrors on us. Even with a party, what are our chances of making it out alive?”

“We made it out alive from the Tunnels of Grithza,” he said, something dark passing through his eyes as he imagined his days in the dark, hollow caves. “We didn't have anyone to rescue us, but it was okay. Before you found me, I was more miserable and from what we got, we are relatively safe from the monsters in the corridors. We just have to look out for the traps and defeat the golems. If there's a room we think we can't handle, we can return.” He took a pause, then added. “As for the lesser abyssal horrors, they won't let us be even if we don't return to the ruins. We just have to keep an eye out for them.”

Rebecca took in his words and nodded. They silently finished their food before heading to sleep.

***

The next day, both of them approached the Adventurer’s Guild reception to find a party for them. It was early morning, but there was already a long line at the reception.

They had to wait for a while as the line moved, but as their turn came, the clerk at the reception smiled as she greeted them.

“Hello, good morning, what can I do for you today?”

“We are looking for a mid sized party to help us out on an expedition. I have written all the information on the application and wanted it as soon as possible,” she said, then put out the same bracelet she had shown the city guard back at the gates. “I'm also a student of the academy and an adventurer. I hope the candidates you would show us would be appropriate.”

“I will make sure of it,” the clerk said politely, before looking through the application. “You want to head to the Stormweaver ruins?”

“Yes, we want to head there because we have information on a few artifacts. We would share any gold coins and statues we find, but keep the artifacts.”

Rebecca explained and the clerk gave a whole look at her, then at the application before nodding her head.

“Okay, give me ten minutes and I will give you a list of party that I think would be suitable and have shown interest on exploring the ruins recently.”

She walked back into the back of the room as Seth and Rebecca stood there. The people behind them let out annoyed grunts as time ticked by.

Seth even heard a few people complaining to other clerks, but no one dared to cause a scene as the clerk returned with two stacks of paper.

“I have a list of parties for you. You can take a look at their profiles and inform me of your decision. Once you have taken it, I will arrange a meeting in the afternoon with them,” she said, passing the papers to both of them.

Thanking her, they both moved to a corner to examine them all.

There were four parties written on it with their name, class, level, adventurer rank, experience and even achievements.

Out of them, two of them had experience of going in and out of dungeons and ruins, while the third party mostly took on field monster expeditions in forest and mountains and the fourth one was a team of newbies.

Seth raked through the first two parties, deciding on them.

The first was named “The Divers” and it was a party specialising in dungeons with a lot of experience. They boasted considerable strength, but his eyes focused more on the first three classes of an Axecutioner, Flame Mage and a Shadow Scout.

The rest were merely warrior classes that looked ordinary, but all of them were between 25-35 in levels.

Moving on, the next class was called “The Shivans”.

He didn't know what it meant, but guessed it was a word in some language he didn't understand. The party was a little lower levelled, being 20-27, meaning not one Rank 4 adventurers.

But the classes they had were unique with Elemental Mage, Beast tamer, Hammer Wacker, and a class called Spirit Saint.

He frowned, wondering which one he should go with.

Looking at Rebecca, she seemed to be in the same predicament.

“You are thinking between the first two, too?” he asked and she nodded her head, putting down the parchment.

“Yes, the last two are interested in exploring the ruins, but they don't have experience of it,” she said, sighing. “Both the parties seem to be fairly experienced, but I'm worried about the levels. The golems were fairly high levelled and we at least need people in Rank 4 to deal with them.”

“Do you think we should ask for higher level parties?”

“We can try, but she would have already given us all the ones available. If she didn't give us more, it means there's no other party willing to enter the ruins.”

Seth shook his head, looking down at the paper again and at the profiles of both the parties. His eyes landed onto the achievements and experience panel and he read through them.

After a while of reading through them, he made a decision. “I think we should go with The Divers.”

“Why is that?” She asked.

“They have more experience and they seem to have gone into ruins before a lot of times. It's written that they excavated part of an ancient king's wealth from a ruin and they have gone to other dungeons too. They seem to have come out of all of them without losing members.”

“Isn't it the same for the other party?”

“They are certainly more versatile in terms of classes, but they have not even entered five dungeons till now while The Divers have experience of over seven. Moreover, the level difference is huge. We need a few Rank 4s if we want to take on the golems.”

Rebecca nodded after hearing his reasoning. She took one last look at the papers before getting up and moving towards the clerk to tell her of the decision.

After that, she walked back to him.

“Okay, we will get a meeting with them in two hours. They are notified.”

“Okay.” He nodded.

“I just hope they are easy to work with.”

Rebecca agreed with him. “Yeah, I hope so too. if not, it would be troublesome.”

***

After two hours, they were led into a meeting room with a table and chairs laid out. It looked like the perfect place for a meeting and The Divers were already present in it when they walked in.

Seth carefully observed them.

It wasn't a human centric team and their leader was a beastman named Xarth. He was a blue skinned seven foot tall brute with two horns sprouting out of his head with black hair. Muscles could clearly be seen under his armour and a sharp axe with a red shaft that belonged to him sat on the table.

Seth had seen the species before in the city and they seemed to be called “Baurus”. He was the Axecutioner.

Next to him stood an elf woman who Seth recognised as Zara. She was a blonde haired woman with common features and a wooden staff. He was a bit surprised since he expected her to be of otherworldly beauty, but it seemed to be more of a stereotype.

She was the Flame Mage and standing next to her was the human scout named Zacky. In the back, three more people stood.

Two human warriors named Sharan and Log holding up a sword and mace respectively, and another elf, a man named Tran who was the archer of the group.

They all seemed to be observing them too and it was only after a few seconds that Seth spoke.

“Hello, we are the ones who wanted to contract a party to go into the Stormweaver's ruins. I'm Seth and she's Rebecca.”

He shook hands with Xarth and sat down on the table.

A booming voice filled the room as the beastman spoke, “We are glad you have chosen us. Now, we were hoping to go take a look in the ruins ourselves, so this is a good opportunity, but aren't they mostly emptied out by other adventurers?” he asked as a matter of fact.

“They are, but we won't be looking at the common pathways,” he said, glancing at Rebecca before continuing. “We want to recruit you to go through a hidden pathway.”