Chapter 4 - A Call to Adventure

Clint’s entire body recoiled at the sight of the prostrating royalty. Of all the fantastical things this world had thrown at him, somehow the sight of two people kneeling before him was the strangest yet.

They were a pair of half-elves judging by their pointed ears, which were comparatively short against those of a pureblood. They resembled each other enough that it was clear they were twins. Both had blonde hair and fair features that tapered down to pointed chins, giving them an overall androgynous appearance that facially made them hard to differentiate. That was, until you got to their eyes…

The rightmost sibling was a man. His red eyes seemed to punch straight through the rest of his face, drawing all attention toward them. He was larger than his sister, his dense muscles gave him a firm frame, filling out his six foot two height well. He came clad in battered armour that was accented by a deep, luxurious red in places, highlighting his matching eyes, which glimmered with excitement as they looked up at Clint.

To his left, a woman. Her eyes were a shimmering, serene blue, only passively beautiful until the light hit them in a certain way… Her long hair flowed like a river of white gold being held back by a dam of a headdress, marking her as a mage. Wherever her brother was hard and strong, she seemed to be soft and loose, blue robes like woven waterfalls hanging baggily around her limbs, but clinging to her torso. The way she looked at Clint was an utter contrast to her brother, anxious and waiting.

“Oh great hero, slayer of the Hellhound. We have journeyed far to meet you.” He pleaded, voice straining with overblown dramatism. “I, Prince Sol and my sister, Princess Luna have come to request your tutelage!”

Renee waved her hands, as if to shove the words back into his mouth. “Prince Sol, please! Act a little more suitably for your position! You too, Princess Luna!” Despite healing them many times over the course of their campaign against the Hellhound, Renee was still reverent of Sol and Luna; She was a great admirer of their father, the Hero King Terra, so it distressed her to see his progeny humble themselves like they did.

“Yoou didn’t travel all that far, you live here…” Brann added dryly, rolling his eyes at Sol’s dramatics.

“Even still, we would have! It’s an honour to meet such an impressive warrior after all!” Luna added, backing up her brother twofold. “He killed the Hellhound in one blast! It took us three months and we hardly even scratched the beast!”

Sol nodded in agreement. “Exactly. Of course we’ve come to pay our respects and kneel before this mighty hero! How can we be expected to grow as adventurers if we don’t acknowledge others' strength?” He rose to his feet and reached for Clint’s hand, but the cowboy leaned back to escape his range. Sol grimaced beneath his smile. “And you, your strength is amazing.”

“Is it true you killed it in one blow? That’s amazing. What kind of technique did you use?” Luna popped up too, joining her brother in getting far too close for comfort. “I don’t see any weapons…” She gasped. “You didn’t kill it bare-handed, did you?”

“It must have been an incredible technique.” Sol just lumped on the praise, burying Clint uncomfortably beneath it. “Please, if we could acquire even a fraction of your power… Think of the good we could do!”

Clint was already irritated with the two for interrupting his drinking, and now lo and behold they had made it a thousand times worse. Sol’s schmoozing and Luna’s incessant questions were so repulsive to him, they had even spoiled his appetite for a drink. A difficult thing to do.

He turned away from the two, instead just addressing Brann. “Thanks for the drink.” he tipped his hat to the other man, scraping his chair backward as he rose to his feet. The barman didn’t reply, simply chuckled and waved him off.

“Hey, come on!” The twins stalked his every move on his way to the door. “This is a great opportunity for you too! Rubbing elbows with royalty? Think of the status you’ll have.” As much as Sol was doing to sell it, Clint simply wasn’t a man for status. He kept his eyes forward, ignoring him.

“It’s safer in a group too! I’m sure you’re powerful, but who’s there to watch out for sneak attacks? To keep watch when you’re asleep? There’s strength in numbers, you know!” Luna chimed, trying her best to address the problem logically. She was unaware that Clint was simply too observant to need such things.

“None of that appealing to you, huh?” Sol paused. Clint finally made some ground on him on his way to the door. He hummed in thought, thinking about what the stranger could possibly value more than status or safety. “Ahh, of course! Of course!” He laughed, rushing in front of Clint just as he reached for the door. “Money!” Sure enough, Clint finally looked his way. “Cold hard gold enough to convince you?”

“Judging from your clothes you’re not from around here, right?” Luna surmised, investigating the cowboy’s strange garb. “In Gallia, you’ll need money to live. Supplies, food, the drinks you seem so fond of…”

“Exactly! And we just so happen to have quite the lucrative quest lined up!” Sol flaunted. “Plenty of gold straight into your pocket! You can even have our share! Three people’s worth of reward for one quest!” Clint’s eternal glare seemed to soften, clearly this was an idea he could get behind. Sol pumped his fist at his small victory.

“Uh, Sol… We need that money.” Luna whispered, lurking at her brothers’ side. “We’re broke too, remember?”

“It’s an investment, think about how much stronger we’ll be after learning from the hero. We’ll make so much gold we won’t even need Dad’s allowance!” Sol boasted, loud enough for everyone to hear despite his sister’s quietness.

“We don’t even get an allowance anymore…” Luna sighed.

“That’s a good thing! We’ll pick ourselves up by our bootstraps, live like a true adventurer, just like Dad did! Brann doesn’t mind us crashing a few more nights anyway, do you Brann?” Sol had now thoroughly made their private affairs everyone else’s business.

Brann rolled his eyes and continued scrubbing his mug. “I keep telling you, it’s all going on your tab.”

Good enough for Sol, he returned his attention to Clint. “So? You’re in? Three people’s worth of gold in our big quest? How’s that sound?”

Clint glanced back at Brann, then at Sol once more. “What’s the job?”

Slimes are considered the most harmless creatures in all the world. Small, ineffectual and most importantly, utterly brainless. Little green balls of gloop that could only attack by launching their soft bodies at their opponents. The only real advantages they had were their durability and their sheer numbers, which made killing them just difficult enough to justify paying people for. And in this case, the people being paid for it were Clint and the twins.

Clint approached the slime with caution, prodding at it with the tip of his foot, hand already ghosting his revolver. It was squishy beneath his boot, its gelatinous flesh curving around his foot as the impact dented its body. He quickly pulled away, repulsed by the unusual sensation.

“I can’t believe he’s never seen a slime before.” Luna said, watching the display in utter bewilderment.

“I can. I mean he’s clearly not from around here.” Sol surmised, watching as Clint stepped back and circled the thing. He investigated it with his gaze, maintaining a distance so the slime’s pitiful lunges could not strike him.

“Well that much is obvious.” Luna rolled her eyes. “But there are slimes all over the world, he must have seen at least one, right?”

Sol chuckled. “Maybe he’s not from this world at all?”

Luna’s blue eyes widened from puddles to lakes. “No way, but I thought-” she said, her voice quiet and airy.

“Suppose we’ll find out.” He cut his sister off with a shrug, attempting to act nonchalant as Clint returned.

“I’m supposed to kill that thing?” He asked, looking back on the slime as it slowly hopped toward them. “Why? It don’t seem like a threat to nobody.”

Luna perked up, she had the answer. “Controlling the monster population is part of our job as adventurers! Especially so with slimes! Unlike animals or monsters, they don’t reproduce. They appear naturally from the Earth, and as such their population never stops increasing at a rapid rate. If we weren’t around, they’d easily get out of control and start overrunning Gallia.”

“So they’re vermin, and you’re just glorified ratcatchers.” Clint surmised.

Luna went terribly pale and flushed all at once. “N-no, this is just beginner stuff! Once you’re more experienced you move on to the bigger quests. Battling stronger monsters, finding ancient relics, exploring dungeons, all the classic stuff!”

“And of course, eventually fighting the forces of the demon king!” Sol added. “That’s what we’re aiming for.” he stated with a proud, puffed chest.

Clint really didn’t understand at all yet. “If you’re fightin’ another country, why not just send a real army?”

Sol and Luna looked at him blankly. “We can’t do that, that’d start a war. Chaos would ensue.” Luna talked down to him as if he were an idiot.

“Ain’t they already invading you?” Clint looked at her as if she were an idiot also.

Sol came in to make the peace. “It's just not how it works. Besides, there’s less bloodshed this way. Only those willing to fight have to, it's a good system!”

Clint could hardly understand how sending only self-employed soldiers with a screw loose to face an invading army of literal demons made any sense. Regardless, it wasn’t his problem, so he elected to ignore it.

Amidst their conversation, the approaching slime had finally gained enough ground to launch its attack. Using all of its might, it flung itself toward Clint’s leg, an all-or-nothing blitzkrieg. Of course, Clint saw the slow, unwieldy blob coming and snuffed its attack out with a quick stomp.

“That’s one off the list, right?” He gritted his teeth at the feeling of slime on his boots, grinding them against the grass to scrape the sludge off.

“Not quite…” Luna frowned, redirecting Clint’s attention to the slime.

The splattered chunks of goop that had been dispersed by Clint’s foot began to pull toward each other, invisible threads pulling them in and tying them together to reform the slime. By the end it was perfectly whole, as if it was never damaged at all.

“Slimes have a core inside them.” She explained, picking up the creature and displaying it to Clint. “It’s the little round, darker patch. It’s kind of hard to see…” She held it up to the light, which penetrated the transparent body of the slime and revealed the opaque core within. “If you want to kill them permanently, you have to strike that.” Luna demonstrated, blowing through the slime with a deft punch. “Like so.”

Clint nodded in acknowledgement, quickly spotting another slime in the brush. He meandered over to it, precisely stomping its core as soon as he reached it without so much of a second glance.

“Make sure to pick up the shattered core pieces too! You’ve gotta take those with you to get paid!” Sol yelled, despite the fact Clint was only fifteen or so feet away from him.

Of course, Clint did want to get paid, so he crouched down and picked up the core’s chunks. They were like little mucus coated stones. He recoiled a little at the touch, quickly making his way over to the twins and dumping them into a sack they had brought.

“Great, now just mark that one off on your stat card!” Luna flourished her own as an example. It was a simple square piece of card made fanciful by gold and red borders and the official stamp of the adventurer’s guild that crowned it. Despite the luxurious look, it seemed totally unremarkable until Luna turned it around.

The text written onto it was magical, glowing and moving, floating just barely above the paper in orangey whisps. Clint read it quickly, though the words seemed to mean nothing. ‘Current Quest: Defeat 10 Slimes’ made enough sense, and a tally mark below it at 1 did also, it was all logical so far. On the other side though, seemingly random words and arbitrary numbers were listed.

“Class: Mage”

“Fortitude: 65”

“Physical Power: 85”

“Swiftness: 100”

“Precision: 90”

“Intelligence: 150”

“Mental Processing: 70”

“Magical Aptitude: 200”

“Mana Cap: 800”

Clint tried to make sense of it, but the more he read the less the words seemed to make sense. “The hell is that?”

Sol laughed. “Of course! You don’t have one. You’re not an official adventurer yet, are you?” He turned his back, aiming his sights on Floraison. “We can grab you one when we finish up here. You’ll need it to turn in the quest.”

Clint didn’t really listen. He just decided that it was beyond him and returned his gaze to the woods. He calmly scanned the trees. Slimes could often be hard to find for those with eyes less trained than his. After all, transparent and green was a perfect camouflage for the woodland environment. The core was the key for Clint, that little discolouration screamed out to him now that his eyes had adjusted to spotting it.

Quickly, he was able to find another one. He wandered over and struck it with a well-placed kick. Another one down. He reached down and gingerly took the core’s fragments before pacing over to Luna and dropping them in her bag.

Sol hopped to his feet. “With that all out of the way, we ought to begin our training.” He stepped out in front, leading the group forward to the more bountiful depths of the woods. Luna matched his pace, leaving Clint to trail behind.

When they arrived at their destination, a clearing, Sol turned pointing dramatically at his new companion. “No more slimes for you! Given how quickly you’ve mastered this, you’ll kill them all too quickly if we let you do it.” He punctuated his sentence by turning back around and scanning for slimes. As soon as he spotted one, he unsheathed his sword.

Luna followed suit, having identified a target of her own. She gave a flourish of her wrist, causing a concealed staff to drop from her sleeve. It was beautifully constructed from what looked like birch, made up of two pieces of wood snaked together like kissing serpents with a polished, polygonal gem between their maws.

“Sit back and watch, hero. This is the power of Gallia’s royalty.” Sol asserted, his ever-present grin finally disappearing. 

Current Party: Clint Morgans, Sol Dragoneart, Luna Dragoneart