Marcus’ Adventure

"You all are dismissed," Will said his excitement and greed on full display.

"Father, shall we stay for this as well?" the crown prince asked, bringing Will back to reality.

"Indeed, this should be an interesting story!" the king said.

Marcus walked into the room covered in mud, his unkempt hair and beard were filled with grass. His mangy sliver hair formed dreadlocked.

Marcus looked more like a vagrant than a noble's son.

"Oh brother, how I missed you! The guards refused to let me. I had to sneak into Jason's room in the fort, and have him usher me to your mansion," Marcus said hugging Will and covering him in filth.

"Oh, your majesty! Crown prince! I didn't see you, I humbly beg for your forgiveness!" Marcus said embarrassed. He immediately drop down on one knee and saluted.

"No apology necessary," the king dismissed the apology.

"Brother maybe a bath first, and then you can treat me to the story of your quest," Will said.

"Alright, then. But first I want you to have these!" Marcus said. Handing Will three Wyvern cores.

"Thank you brother, I shall see you soon," Will said not looking at the cores.

After a maid direct Marcus upstairs, Will petitioned Michael to come closer.

"First, call for the finest whores and send them to my brother's room with plenty of wine. Give him a room farthest from his majesty and crown prince.

Second, order 100, no 200, no 250 Merchant Knights to the residence, pay them handsomely, with the requirement they cannot open the box and must deliver the box to Bradley vont Alms in Guidon. Now go, quiet as a mouse," Will whispered.

An hour later, the king, crown prince, Elizabeth, their parents, Jason, and Marcus sat down for lunch.

Marcus' mangy dreadlocks were gone. Gone too were the dirt, grime, and stench. Marcus now resembled a proper noble.

A scrumptious feast was served as a welcome home party for Marcus. Marcus starred at the roast hog on the table, with an apple in its mouth. Fruits, vegetables, beer, wine, overcrowded the dining table.

"As we feast, Marcus vont Ballard regale us with your story," Crown Prince Roland Godwin vont Whitby decreed.

"My story starts within the Albanian army camp early in the war. I served in the Intelligence Command, and lead a small squadron gathering information behind enemy lines.

One of the guys I worked with was a friend of yours too, Will. But I forget his name.

Honestly, the job was easy. I mostly ate and drank with soldiers. The drunker they became the more information they divulged.

After my three-month tour was up, I returned to the command base. I was unsure whether to sign up for another tour, or do something else, that when I heard soldiers gossiping about Will's quest.

I immediately traveled back to Guidon and walked in the Adventure Guild.

It was dusk, and many of the adventures were returning having completed their quest.

The guild was jam-packed with adventurers. The bar in the back was also crowded, but I was able to find a seat. As I drank, people were gossiping about the war and Will's request.

After listening to the gossip, I went to the request board to see if anyone had accepted my little brother's quest.

Thankfully, no one had. The request was marked as an S-class mission. Only veteran adventures like myself could accept such a request.

Requests were listed from E to S based on the difficulty of the assignment. Only S-Ranked adventures like myself could except such as quest.

Lady Luck was on my side because my former guild buddies had just finished a quest. After catching up with them, they invited me back.

After looking at the request board, I convinced them to accept my little brother's quest. I knew then that fate brought us together and we'd return unharmed. As the saying goes, 'The Goddess of Luck, Tyche, favors the brave.'

Including myself, there are six of us that make up our party. Sebas is the captain and shield barrier. Lazarus and I are the swordsmen. Paquin is our mage, Ghost is the ranger, and Amaya is our healer.

Before we left the city, Amaya requested we visit the church and pray for a safe journey. Amaya was always like that, but we don't complain. She saved our lives enough, so we always agree with her.

After leaving the church we took rode north to the giant mountain where the dwarves live. Wyverns roost in the caves high up in the mountains, above the clouds.

Honestly, the ride from Guidon to Northern Fringe was pretty easy. We sleep at inns along the way. We relished those days slurping down plates of noodles and beer.

However, past the fringe, we slept in tents and ate whatever we could find: squirrel, rabbit, and if they were lucky a deer.

The hike up the mountains started well. But the higher we traveled the steeper it became. Once, we had to sleep on a rock ledged, and we were lucky to find that.

As we traveled up the mountains it became a never-ending slaughter to reach the top. We fought bears, wolves, and cougars. We were stung by wasps and bees. Vultures circled overhead, waiting for us to doe.

The worst was the retreating and advancing up the mountain. Sebas did his best to lead us around dangerous animals. We would travel 10 steps forward and 30 steps back. It may for an endless journey.

On several occasions, we get lost and ended up back at the same place. Or we'd have to double back.

We had several sleepless nights. On more than one occasion night watch alerted us to a pack of wolves who followed us from a previous battle. That mangy pack followed us for 7 kilometers until we finally killed the entire pack.

Whenever I had night watch duty, I loved looking up at the night sky and seeing the silvery moon above and twinkling lights.

Even though I could hear animals roaring knowing they wanted to eat us alive, that moon, always brought me tranquility.

By the second month, Lazarus and Ghost were upset, and Paquin was depressed. Lazarus and Ghost were upset with Seba's backtracking and circling away strategy. Paquin was depressed because two months is the longest we spent on a quest," Marcus stopped storytelling for a moment and looked at him directly.

"Little brother, to lift their spirits, I told them you might increase the value of the quest. I hope you can see fit to do that?" Marcus asked humbly.

"Of course, I'll give you a bag of gold you can share with them. I'll also have Kurosawa give them back pay for any money they spent so far," Will said smiling warmly at Marcus.

After hearing Will's affirmation, Marcus returned to tell his story.

"After two months, we finally found a path to lead us up to mountain peaks. We celebrated by killing a mountain goat.

I heard tell the goats us them as mounts like we use horses. It's that fascinating. I didn't see any dwarves on our travel, but Paquin claimed to see one stealthily observing us.

We started our journey it was late summer, by the time we found the path, it was mid-autumn. The weather was getting colder. We were in a race against the weather.

Believe me, you do not want to be in the mountains during winter. The higher we climbed the colder it became. On part of our journey, we had to climb up the mountain by grabbing onto rocks.

It was the most terrifying and exhilarating experience of my life. However, after climbing up the rock wall, we came to a hot spring.

Imagine our surprise when we saw a pool of warm water. We all immediately jumped in naked. It was the cleanest we'd been in months. Amaya even brought along your Rose Soap.

After we bathed we sat in talked. From the hot spring, we overlooked the entire Fermion Kingdom. The castle looked like a toy. No, offense your majesty. I just wanted to impress upon the majestic view, your majesty.

After the bath, we sat by a warm fire smiling and laughing. All those the weather was cold. No predators lived that high up.

The only thing we could eat was are our rations and wild taro. I don't know why, but there were several wild taro crops in the clearing.

As day turned into night, we pitched our tents near an overhanging rock ledge to give up protection from the rain.

However, our great day turned into a nightmare at night. The hot spring we enjoyed so much, turned out to be the wyverns bath as well.

We should have known better. The reason no predators existed was that we had entered into wyvern territory.

Have you ever seen a wyvern up close, it's terrifying. Wyverns resemble dragons except for their front hinds are attached to their wings. Their front hinds, also most resemble arms and hands, but with sharps claws.

Thankfully, Paquin was on night watch and cast a barrier spell concealing us and our smell from the wyverns. While he was fast, the wyverns still pickup our lingering scent from the hot springs.

They immediately went into berserker mode. Paquin saved our lives, one wyvern came close, face to face with us, but thanks to Paquin's array the beast didn't see us and left to search other locations.

After the wyverns gave up looking for us, they circled high up in the sky riding the wind currents. It was hard to see their black bodies in the sky. If it wasn't for their movement and glowing yellow eyes we would have lost them.

Lazarus wanted to attack immediately, but then Seba's reminded us we had not planned out an escape route. Climbing up the side of the mountain is much easier than climbing down, and we had to climb down almost six meters.

We estimated about 30, give or take five, wyverns lived in that roost. You may not know, but in wyvern families, there is only one male. Most wyverns are females. It was easy to figure out the alpha because he lazily few in the sky's protecting his domain. Females wyverns are responsible for hunting. All the male does is protect the roost.

We decided to rest the first night, and the next day, we would put our plan into motion. Our goal was to kill three juvenile wyverns. Most, male wyverns don't care about their children, only their mates.

During the next day, we spent time laying out traps and preparing for battle. We prepared for the worst. Honestly, I wasn't sure we'd all come back alive.

Like the night before, we hid under the rock ledge protected by Paquin's barrier. Ghost made sure to clean up our tracks.

When the wyverns descended the second night, they realized our scent was gone. We saw them immediately relax. However, a few moments later.

SNAP, one of our traps snared a juvenile's wing, maiming it. Ghost quickly shot the wyvern with a poison arrow, killing it.

However, just before it died it squawked alerting the other wyverns. Suddenly, 30 wyverns descended on the clearing, examining the dead monster. We watched them more the loss of their family member. We watched their grief turn into rage.

I pray brother, you never live to see an angry flock of wyverns. The noise along was tremendous. I had to cover my ears. Their shrill mournful cries, still haunt my memories.

We only intended to kill one wyvern juvenile. However, we never expected one of the females, probably the mother, to pick up her dead child and fly it back to the roost.

With our best chance gone, we almost decided to end the quest early and come back empty-handed. However, Ghost was adamant about finishing the quest. He even promised to take the night watch shift if we tried tomorrow.

In the end, we agree to give it one more try tomorrow before calling it quits. Unknown to use, while we slept that night. Ghost sneaked out and poisoned the hot springs.

In the morning, when we woke up. 12 dead wyverns were laying beside or in the hot springs. It was a massacre. Ghost killed almost have the roost by himself.

The male wyvern was so mad he flew desperately trying to find the criminals. After ten hours he gave up the search and flew away from the roost, with the remaining wyverns.

To cause such a massacre caused rubbed many of the people the wrong way. Wyverns might be large scary monsters, but they are beautiful creatures. To see that many lying dead, felt like a winless victory.

After the male left, we harvest the cores of the 12 dead beasts and the dead juvenile we killed yesterday in the caves.

Everyone, except me, took two cores as payment. I was given three to give to you. I don't know what the others plan to do with their cores, but after the way things ended I wanted to give you my three cores.

Now that you have the cores, can you mark here, that quest was completed?" Marcus said handing Will the Adventure Guild proof of delivery document.

"What a magnificent story," James vont Ballard said.

"Indeed," agreed said the duke, crown prince, and king.

"Don't ever put yourself in that much danger again, I forbid it. I almost died of shock! And Will, how could you put your brother in that much danger!" Helen, Marcus, and Will's mother reprimanded them both.

"Bring your adventure party over tomorrow, I want to buy the other cores!" Will said greed filling his body.