WoV, Book 1, Chapter 9: Stay a while, and listen

Cocobezi was still clutching his sides and chuckling by the time they reached the city gate, “I-hihi–in spite of your companion’s silly scheme,” He giggled, wiping off a tear, “She is correct that you ought to register as an adventurer. To be a thaumaturge unlocks numerous doors, joining the Adventurers Guild will unlock even more.”

“And it means better variety of jobs, too.” Muur hummed agreeably. She didn’t think she would ever find flinging around elemental wroth dull, not with how intoxicating the power thrumming under her skin and ripping into anything unlucky enough to be in front of her staff was, but still. Variety was the spice of life.

“Quite so, now off you go. I have a report to write, my brothers to brief– and not to worry, I have already informed Miss Momodi of the situation,” He told them. Before dropping a purse in Muur’s hands, “And here is your payment, plus the temple’s stipend for newly enrolled initiates… in quadruple, as we’ve taken into account your time under your previous teacher’s employ.”

“Much appreciated.” The lizard said with a winsome smile before turning to her still mortified friend, “Looks like you got yourself a plus one for that shopping trip we interrupted.”

“Oh. Goodie…,” The cat stood unmoving for a time, before looking at Muur, “Good luck with all that. I am not helping– Unless what just happened never did.”

“Whatever do you mean? We just spent the whole trip back talking about adventurer minutia.” Muur said with a beatific smile.

“Right,” Kofle retorted, narrowing her eyes, “Exactly. Let’s go get you registered then.”

Taking the lead, Kofle guided the lizard back to the inn she’d been kidn– picked up from, “We should be just inbetween food-rushes, so it shouldn’t take too long to get you registered in as an adventurer. I hope,” Right as they began going up the stairs that led to the entrance, she looked back to Muur over her shoulder, “Have you attuned to the aetheryte network at all, or?”

“The one in the Ossuary and that’s it.” The fledgling mage replied with a shrug.

“You should attune to the one next to the stairs when we’re done with the paperwork, it’ll make going back and forth way faster,” As the pair entered the Quicksands, her previous assertion proved true. There were only a handful of people milling about in the inn’s interior, most of them adventurers of some description, but Muur could also see what looked to be more ‘normal’ people at some of the tables, “We’ll want to go to the counter to register. Over there, where the huge ledger is.”

“Hello and welcome to the Quicksands, what can I do for ye?” A roegadyn asked as they approached, looking up from the tiny shot glass he was cleaning, “Food and drinks to go? Here to turn in a job? Or maybe lookin’ for one? If it’s the later, yer a mite late. All the good one’s been taken for the afternoon.”

“Here to register, so close enough.” Muur explained with a small smile.

“Ah, I hear ye. Mind waitin’ a bit? Only person here that can register new adventurer’s Miss Momodi, and she’s in the back. I’ll go fetch her” Receiving a nod of agreement from Muur, he quickly vanished behind a large two tiered door. Leaving the two women to wait.

“Soooo, might be rude to ask. But how’re your letters?” Kofle inquired, dropping her stuff at the foot of the counter and leaning back against the wood surface to face the wider inn, “There’s not much to write. But there are quite a few things to read, and a signature to put down.”

“...Not as bad as my kanji, not as good as my abjad.” Muur said after a quick check at her memories. Apparently she knew legally distinct arabic script now.

“...I have no idea what any of these are,” Kofle said after a moment, before pushing off of the counter and leaving, “wait here a sec.” She quickly moved towards the entrance of the inn, specifically to a smaller counter, where a clerk was writing into a large ledger.

She exchanged a quick few words with them, before being given some sort of paper and making her way back to Muur, “Here,” She said, offering what the wizard could now tell was a flier covered in printed text, “I can’t help you learn everything there is to know of the written language in half a dozen minutes. But I’ll at least show you how adventuring requests are set up.”

“It’s that or having you read some parts of the contract to me.” The lizard wizard sighed as she grabbed the flier, looking it over.

“There’s some aids for that actually,” Kofle began to say as she took back her spot next to Muur, “not every adventurer starts as able to read, or write. Not every adventurer ends their career able to either. But the guild has set up some free remedial classes to help people that didn’t get a full education. I asked about it, it’s expensive, but less expensive than having to arbitrate every dispute that arises from an adventurer being unable to read a request properly.”

“Anyhow, all requests are laid out the same way. Apparently, people come with their requests and then the guild turns them into these standardized fliers,” Tapping at the first line, she started to explain, “First’s the request’s name. Usually it’s a joke, because being a clerk is a miserable existence and they have to find some joy in it somewhere. This one’s called ‘Gotta Bounce’– I’ll leave you to mull on what it could be about for now. Second line concerns the rewards you’ll get on completion, 140 gil in this case. Which is just about the price of a night, dinner included, here. So pretty decent money. The third line’s a general description of what people want from you, I’m not gonna read it here but it boils down to ‘we need rubber to be able to make other stuff. Give us some, please’, on requests that ask for killing monsters, escorting caravans, or other things of that nature, you’ll generally find more information in there. Like the location, date of departure and so on…”

Muur was all but boring a hole into the request’s title, mouthing something under her breath.

“Oh! Right, almost forgot,” She tapped a blank space between the name and rewards, “sometimes, and by that I mean when the person making the request is rich enough, there might be an eye-catching illustration here. Weird that the Alchemist Guild didn’t put one here… Uh– back to it. Fourth line’s a quick, simple and short description of what’s actually asked of you. ‘Deliver two stones worth of rubber.’ That means two ponze, thirty-two onze, if you’re curious. Finally, the last line, right here all the way in the lower right corner is the one that made the request. In this case, it’s the Alchemists’ Guild, but it can be individuals too– You okay? You’re glaring at this paper like it drank all your water in the middle of the desert.”

“Fill de sa putisima mare…” <Son of the ur-whore> The mage hissed under her breath, before pinching her nose and rearing back with a long-suffering groan, “It really just reads as ‘Gotta Bounce’ and ‘Deliver two stones worth of rubber’.” Muur despaired, pronouncing them in english instead of the fucked to hell phonemes Eorzea used instead. “I’m going to stuff the nose of whoever did this with icicles, I swear to God.”

“I have no idea what you just said?” The cat, who had bee doing her best to explain, looked thoroughly confused, “What language was that? ‘Gutda Bunse’? Is that a swear? Now, uh… I guess I walk you through the text?”

“No, it is how you say ‘Gotta Bounce’ as in the request title in what was apparently a pidgin of Eorzean that somehow retained its writing one to one just with the letters corrupted and I want back all the time I spent stressing over this.” Muur said as she glowered murderously at the paper like it had killed her cat, tail cracking like a whip behind her, “Just to make sure this nonsense language isn’t about to drop a third gotcha on my ass, please confirm, this reads top to bottom:

For the purpose of producing its wares, the Alchemist Guild hereby makes requests of two (2) stones, equivalent to two ponze, or thirty-two onze, of pure rubber, at a rate of one hundred and fourty (140) gil.”

Pay may be increased based upon the purity of the delivered product. Up to, and including a doubling of the rate, to a total of two hundred and eighty (280) gil.”

“It does, yeah. You had a few mispronunciations, but overall that’s exactly what’s written.” The cat said with a raised eyebrow, “Guess you know your letters then.”

“Fuckin’ englishmen.” The fat tailed woman groaned, dragging a hand down her face, “Anyways–”

Just as she was beginning to speak, the lower section of the door the roegadyn had disappeared behind opened, letting out a small lalafel woman. She wore a simple but well made white ensemble accented with a few patches of black and a minuscule amount of gold. Her brown-red hair was styled into two buns atop her head, as well as two small chin-length braids that framed her plump face. A few pieces of golden jewelry, non-precious stones set in them, kept her hairdo in place. From what she’d seen of the city so far, it wasn’t enough that Muur could call her as full-on rich, but it marked her as rather well off.

Lifting her head, she looked around with eyes of the same color as her hair, they lit up as soon as they landed on them, “You must be the one here to register!” In contrast to her somewhat youthful appearance, her voice was quite rich and mature with the faintest hint of a southern twang, “Muur, was it? Cocobezi sent a runner that mentioned you would be comin’. Allow me to introduce myself, Momodi Modi, owner of the Quicksand inn, and, as I think you already know, leader of the Adventurers’ Guild here in Ul’dah!”

“Muur’Zagas Himaa, pleasure to make your acquaintance.” The young mage replied with a small smile, for once glad of her new (nonexistent) height since she only had to stoop somewhat to properly shake the lady’s hand. The roegadyn would’ve had trouble even while kneeling.

Before accepting the handshake, Momodi took a few steps on a hidden footstool, giving her a few more inches, “The pleasure’s mine dear! Now, I understand you’re new to Eorzea. So would you rather hear about our humble guild, or cut to the chase and register right away?”

“I’d rather get a feel for my middlemen now rather than to have an unpleasant revelation later.” Muur replied after a quick glance at a nearby clock. She still had plenty of time.

“Smart of ye! Now, I’ll try to make this explaination less winding than it’d normally be. To start, the Adventurer’s Guild is a new thing all things considered. Ye see, not fifty years ago, the peace our little slice of the realm’s enjoying wasn’t even a twinkle in the eyes of even the most optimist of folks! Every state was at each other’s throat, now it was no ‘true’ war, armies weren’t marching out to face each other in bloody battle. But callin’ on sellswords and mercenaries? Now, that there was plenty of,” Taking a few glasses from behind the counter, the woman began cleaning them as she continued her explanation, “All out war was too risky, for anyone, ye understand. If Limsa Lominsa called on its armies of seadogs, how would they raid for the supplies they need, defend against the reprisal of the many navies they’ve angered? Even if the mere idea of expandin’ beyond the Black Shroud wasn’t aberant to Gridania, how would they ever keep their violent neighbours of Ala Mhigo in check? Or protect their precious forest from other threats? Ala Migho was too busy bein’ ruled by madder and madder kin’s, and Ishgard has far too many, very large, very angry scaly problems to deal with– as an aside, I’d not recommend goin’ near their outposts past the Shroud. Ye look a mite too much like a dragon fer them to be a welcomin’ folk. ‘Cept for a welcome at spear point… And finally dear Ul’dah? Well, the Sultanate’s power was already gutted, and no Syndicate member would allow another to wield the power of a full standin’ army.”

Setting down the glasses in front of Muur, herself and Kofle, the matron gave a short whistle towards one of her workers, “All that changed when the Garlean Empire attacked. It fell on Ala Mhigo when it was most weak, their mad king had just exterminated the Fist of Ralghr, a sect of monks that’d been that state’s most powerful fightin’ force for centuries! But as they weren’t true subordinates to the king?” Drawing a thumb across her neck, Momodi mimicked the sound of someone losing their head, “Had to go. So when the Empire decided that this’d be how they entered Eorzea? Well, the poor Ala Mhigans traded one madman for another in less than a month… That was twenty years ago.”

Her story was interrupted for a moment when a man brought her a condensation covered pitcher, “Thank ye dear, now where was I? Ah, right. The Empire– We knew of ‘em sure, but t’il then, that business had always been ‘someone else’s problem’. We had our own here, what’d we care if folks over on the other side of the star got conquered? At most it meant some refugees, mayhaps a bit less trade as well. Well, I can assure you, that attitude didn’t last long after that,” Bending forwards some, she poured some water for all three of them, “The realisation that the Empire wasn’t afraid to come here lit a fire under the arse of Ul’dah, Limsa and Gridania. All that gil pourin’ into mercenary coffers went right into their militaries so that a proper answer to the Garlean’s invasion could be worked out. Can’t rightly blame them, but… let’s say it didn’t sit well with the sellswords that suddenly found themselves without work, and in some cases broken contracts to boot,” Taking a sip of the water, she looked Muur straight in the eyes with a haunted look and was met with a grimace. The lizard woman knew where this was going, “And there isn’t a worse neighbour than an idle warrior with no means to earn his next meal. Thankfully, that didn’t last long, only a few months. The military leaders realised that they could solve two problems in one swoop– in fact, reason it’d taken months was drafting a proper contract for what came next: The Eorzean Grand Alliance.”

“T’was the military coalition of all city states, an alliance meant to sidestep the fear of one singular state grabbin’ all the mercenaries, only to turn around and sic them on a weakened ally. And I can assure you the moment it was formed? It hired sellswords by the cartload…” Finishing her drink, she sighed heavily as she put it down, “And then the Garleans stopped. Not a year had passed, and they just… stopped. They pulled back to Ala Mhigan lands and built a massive wall between it and the Shroud for reasons none ever quite figured out. Without that threat, the city states didn’t have a choice, and again cut their hired mercenaries loose. But this time, things were different.”

“Mercenaries were back to square one – well some of them did get hired by Grand Companies in the end – but! durin’ that time fightin’ the Garleans, a man named Lodewicus The Leal realised what was goin’ to happen the moment war ended,” The woman quickly filled her glass back up and offered to do the same for Muur with a shake of the pitcher, “He wanted none of that, sure more bandit’d mean work in the end. But he wasn’t that kind of a man, his band was a proper band. A large one he ran like an army. He rebranded it as the ‘Adventurer’s Guild’ and used every connection he had to find work for his people. Less grandiose work. A caravan escort here, a culling of beasts there, some light poacher killin’ over in the Shroud. Every time, no more than eight men and everytime nothing what could be considered a job that a company of sellswords as big as his ought to be doing.”

“At first, people were stumped. Couldn’t see what he was doin’, but the smarter leaders of mercenary bands? They realised he was trying to set an example. He though people’d form their own little guilds like his– unfortunately for our good lad, his rivals were smarter than him!” Smiling broadly like a little gremlin, Momodi deepened her voice to try and sound as gruff as she could. It… wasn’t very gruff at all, kinda like a puppy trying to growl, “ ‘Why’d we make our own guild? You daft bastard already made one! ’ they told him, and before he knew it, he had sellswords chimpin’ at the bits to join! Most asked fer help findin’ contracts, others for mediatin’ said contracts. Not five years from the day of its creation, the Guild became the institution it is today– almost. Bein’ an adventurer was just a job, something ye did to earn bread and coin– and maybe a lass or three on the side. But t’was just a fancier name for bein’ a sellswords. It changed five years ago. Now, bein’ new and all, I don’t suppose ye’ve heard of the Warriors of Light?”