Cheeky little clerk

Opposites do attract after all, because Rudolf is the opposite of Jake in many ways. Where Rudolf is rash, Jake is careful, where Rudolf is loud, Jake is quiet, where Rudolf is impulsive, Jake is calculative. They always seemed to be on each other's nerves, almost as if they were enemies and not friends. The thing that kept them together was their collective goal of winning, they both took wildly different paths but wanted to end up at the same spot. They both wanted to win, in games, they had both been extremely competitive. They wanted to be the best and had a burning fury to do whatever was needed to achieve that. Throughout the years their relationship deepened because of them going through the same problems, even if they were vastly different in nature.

Rudolf and Jake both thought of this as an opportunity to make a lot of money. Jake then realised something he should have the realised way earlier. What was Rudolf's speciality? He had not bothered to ask because Rudolf practically always went the warrior route, but in this game, there was specifics and Jake had to know. Rudolf explained that his speciality was called "Flame Knight". It was a dark red speciality and he exceeded in dealing damage with a natural affinity towards the fire. Right now his skills were making his sword extremely hot, making his skin release fire, An charge attack filled with flames, Pheonix like healing abilities. Rudolf also explained that all of his skills were very loud and eye-catching. Jake now had to find a quest that could fit them both, except it was very hard.

Jakes entire kit relied upon being sneaky whilst Rudolf's entire kit relied upon being loud. Where Jake was a silent shadow, Rudolf was the screaming sun. It was almost as if they could not coexist. They kept on searching for quests, they only had one and a half day left so it had to be a quest that could be accomplished quickly. After a while of looking through the quests, they found one that seemed to be pretty profitable.

-

The fucking guards belonging to the YellowEagle squad raped and murdered my daughter. 20 silvers to whoever murders those animals.

-

Jake did not know how strong the guards were but the reward was good and both Rudolf and Jake could do something in this quest. They decided to take the quest to the counter to ask for more information.

The clerk was the definition of suspicious, he was wearing a hood and only his eyes were visible. They were green and dubious, similar to a fox. The only visible part of his body was his hands which were covered in tattoos. As Jake walked forward he could feel the clerk staring at him. The clerk greeted them, then Jake started asking multiple questions. The clerk simply stood there silently, almost as if he was waiting. They did not get a shred of information through him. However, throughout their questioning it felt like he had an eerie smile plastered on his face throughout the conversation. Then the clerk started talking.

"To take a quest here, you have to take a blood contract promising you will accomplish the quest even at your death. If you break the contract the house will put a hit on you. The house is responsible for getting you the money if you are to succeed. Furthermore, this place is a safe haven for rogues, murder or theft in the safe haven will gain you a hit. Being here is illegal so I would not advise you to talk about it openly. The final but most important rule, the first day here means you have to accept a quest before you leave" He said in a sly voice.

"Do you want that quest?" he said almost in a mocking tone.

Now Jake had an issue, he did want to know what would happen if he simply walked out but he had an idea. Obviously, he did not like that idea, so he decided to play by his rules.

"Let me think..." he was cut off by Rudolf, "Of course we accept it," he said with a deep voice. Rudolf was standing tall with his chest pushed out and chin held high, almost so high that it looked ridiculous. It appeared as if Rudolf did not like being looked down on by the clerk, and decided to look down on the clerk in response. The clerk let out a little laughter, before saying "Of course you do" in a warm tone whilst looking at Rudolf as if he were an ape. Then he turned his attention towards Jake, "how about you?", "Can we accept the same quest?" Jake asked. The Rogue Hall let out a laugh at the same time, it was as if everyone in the room was eavesdropping on their conversation and Jake had just said something idiotic. "You can but it is frowned upon in our culture," he said, Jake could almost feel the mean smile on his face. "Then we will do it", this time nobody laughed and there was simply silence.

The clerk took out a contract and a knife, "put a drop of your blood on a contract. This contract does not bind you to anything, it will only notify the house if you are alive", he breathed in. "If you do fail and want redemption, you have to immediately come back here and do something for the house for free," he uttered the last words as if it were the biggest insult he had heard.

Rudolf took the knife and cut his thumb, a drop of blood came out before landing on the contract. The blood instantly dried up before the clerk took the contract. Then Jake picked up the knife with his bone arm before cutting his right hand, nothing came out due to his "bone" skill but it still hurt, like hell. Jake did all of this clearly in front of the clerk, then he asked: "How are we going to fix this?"

The clerk stared at him for a while before taking out a green knife. He took Jakes hand and cut a wide cut across his palm, strangely Jake felt nothing. Nothing came out of the hand, in the middle of this process Jake decided to willingly direct his death energy out of his body, a black mist came out. "We have a solution, it's just..." He paused, "You can put your thumb on the paper and say, I accept." as he finished the sentence, the entire Rogue Hall burst into laughter. "A fucking winkie", "We have not had a fucking winkie in a while", one specific person was just oozing with laughter.

Jake had no other option though, so he did as the clerk said and accepted the quest. The clerk finally said, "Your time limit for the quest is a week, and don't bother coming back here before you complete the quest."

Jake then felt the dimensions around him twist, then he found himself alongside Rudolf at the manhole they had entered the city from. Almost as if the clerk told him he had his eyes on them since they entered. However now Jake had a mission, he had to kill the YellowEagle squad, the problem was he did not know where to get started.