Mercenaries

The cart bounced about on the uneven road as it approached Purple Sunflower. Excluding the one monster encounter the road was relatively uninhabited.

Akiol hadn't pressed further regarding the information of Third Stages. Although Wharm was an individual who seemed well informed, he clearly lacked information regarding this matter. Akiol would have to find other sources.

Halting at a designated spot Wharm dismounted the cart, "I must thank you again Sir Akiol."

"I insist you just call me Akiol.", Akiol hopped off the crate.

"I- Very well. Will you be continuing your journey immediately?"

"I plan to take a look around first."

Wharm smiled, "In that case if you're still here when I'm done selling my wares, come to visit me and I'll pay for your services."

"Didn't you say you couldn't afford a Third Step?"

"I-I uh-"

"I'm simply making a joke Wharm. Don't worry about it. I appreciate the ride."

"Of course.", Wharm took off his top hat and bowed.

Akiol glanced towards Rango and also thanked the ox-like creature, "It was a smooth ride Rango, I appreciate it."

Rango responded with a gurgling sound and Wharm smiled in response. Akiol waved a farewell and began his exploration. One of the first things he noticed was how similar the beginning villages were. Purple Sunflower looked basically the same as Red Bush. 

Akiol didn't remember the starting villages of the East. So despite the differences between the continents the fact that the starter village was the same felt eerie. But naturally there was some minute differences.

First of all was the entire removal of the Adventurer's Guild. As Akiol guessed the place was instead a Mercenary branch. A handful of low leveled players walked in and out of this building. The players almost entirely ignored the NPCs. 

Akiol slipped through the crowd and entered the Mercenary building. Unlike the professional atmosphere of the Adventurers' Guild the Mercenaries were very blunt and straightforward.

Someone placed papers of jobs onto a board, and a player would come by and tear one down. There wasn't any confirmation of accepting the job. Only completion. A player would walk in with the torn request, a signature at the bottom, and just place it in front of the receptionist before walking out.

It seemed rewards were handed out by the requesting party. Remembering Wharm's words about upfront payment Akiol seemed to understand how this system worked. This branch was purely to handle the incoming requests, not dish out information or payment. 

Truthfully Akiol preferred the Adventurers' Guild. Yet this method seemed more in tune with how players usually acted. Even in the central continent the players often focused on grinding dungeons. Perhaps this way of handling requests and quests would be well received in the central continent.

"Dude there's a traveling merchant outside, he might have some nice items."

"In a starter village?"

"Apparently!"

Akiol's ears picked up this conversation and believed Wharm was making quick action to sell off his wares. The rumor of a traveling merchant seemed to gather the attention of the players and the Mercenary branch was rapidly emptied out. 

Taking this moment to approach the request board Akiol scanned through the list. An employee approached and stacked more requests onto the board. Considering there was a lack of players Akiol made small talk with the NPC, "I'm surprised there seems to be no end to requests."

This startled the NPC who clearly wasn't expecting to be spoken to. A stack of papers slipped from their arm and despair crawled across their face. Akiol whisked up the papers before they scattered about and handed them back to the poor employee, "Sorry, didn't mean to startle you."

Accepting the papers the employee smiled apologetically, "Thank you. I'm not used to Resurrectors talking to me."

"I noticed."

"Anyway there's no shortage of requests for small time hunts or low level resources. We often get requests to gather a large amount of these resources, so we just deal them out in bite sized portions. It's more efficient this way."

"Seems to work quite well. How is payment handled?"

"Part of the request has a delivery location. Once they deliver the requested materials a stamp or signature is put on the request, they receive the payment, and they turn it in here to complete. Usually a few Resurrectors tend to complete these in bulk."

Perhaps turning in the paper awards the experience? Or is there some other reason to bring the paper back?

"How would one go about obtaining more difficult requests?"

"When turning in a request the Mercenary gains a bit of reputation. Eventually as your reputation grows you'll get more personalized requests asking for you specifically. The more popular, the higher the pay."

So it was reputation points and not experience. Or it may be both.

The employee stacked the final paper request to the board and mentioned, "Ah although if these low level requests are proving too easy you could get higher paying requests at other branches. The cities provide a higher standard in pay but the difficulty is usually higher."

Similar to the Adventurers' Guild. . .

"Thank you.", Akiol pleasantly smiled.

The employee examined Akiol and frowned, "You're clearly someone who's capable. Are you interested in becoming a Mercenary? If so I'd recommend you find a higher tier branch, they're more equipped to handle the more capable of individuals."

"No, I was just curious.", Akiol shook his head.

The employee tilted their head, "Are you a Guidehand then?"

There was that name again. Was it really so strange for someone to not be apart of an organization?

"An adventurer.", Akiol simply stated his occupation.

"Oh. . .", the employee looked at Akiol with a hint of pity.

"I've been about for a while, has the reputation of adventurers not been great?"

"Often times the things adventurers find are claimed by the Sects."

Dungeons being claimed by Guilds, that's nothing new. Well, except for the fact that Dot liberated the dungeons out of the Guilds' control in the central continent. Other than that it could be good land locations or resource spots like mines or harvesting spots.

So an adventurer usually had their findings be stolen. No wonder it's not a popular choice. It would be better to associate yourself with a Sect and obtain a direct reward for reporting your findings. 

Ironically Akiol began to see Dot's point of view with targeting the Guilds. Before he could understand the reasoning, only now did he see why Dot took action. However it wasn't this bad at the central continent before he started his terror.

This thought once again nagged at his ear, like a piece of the puzzle was missing. He recalled this same feeling occurring during his fight against Dot. A sort of intuition. . . 

Akiol made a mental note to find Dot again sometime.

Reassuring the employee Akiol made a casual excuse, "I adventure for the sights really. The world is really beautiful."

"It is sometimes isn't it?", the employee smiled, "You'll have to forgive me, I must return to my work. I feel the Resurrectors will be back and the board never remains this full."

"I won't hold you any longer."

The employee nodded and left through a door. Turning his attention towards the request board Akiol read the requests. It was as the employee described. Harvesting herbs, obtaining standard ores, hunting certain creatures. . .

Akiol picked a request to read it closer. It was a simple extermination mission, but the target made him frown.

The request read "Hunt 10 Slimes".

The details mentioned to deliver the cores to a location he didn't know. However. . . slimes were in a standard request list?

An approaching player looked over Akiol's shoulder and laughed, "Slime request huh? According to the Guidehands this kind of requests shouldn't be a starting pick. Apparently the slimes are really good at avoiding damage. Slippery little guys. If you can't hit their core they're basically invincible."

Akiol glanced towards the player and asked, "Where do you normally go to find them?"

"Ehhh they usually appear at night in the mines. There's an old one that has a bunch of tiny mana crystals, they like to gather around there. It's east of here near Green Bay village. If you do complete this quest I recommend you to hunt an extra one for the core. Keep it and you'll be able to make a really good storage bag out of them."

"Storage bag?"

"Apparently the slimes are really good at absorbing things. If you keep a core intact enough you can make a storage bag out of it, it holds way more than the standard one you're given. The higher Step the slime the better the bag. Once you reach First Step make it your beginning goal to find a First Step slime. Although you'll be hard pressed to repeat this for Second Step. Second Step slimes are basically impossible to find. The Guidehands mention they've never seen a Third Step one either."

"I've heard a lot about these Guidehands."

"I'm looking to join their ranks! They have a huge join list at Second Stage right now, you're basically never getting in unless you're Third Stage. Anyways good luck, I've gotta join my group for our next request."

The helpful player left and Akiol returned his eyes to the held request.

The words "never seen a Third Step one either" rang in his head.

This. . . the west might actually be dangerous for him!