The Questgiver

I walked over to the "take a weapon leave a weapon" table, and found it mostly covered in wooden sticks of varying definitions. As Artemis had said, however, as I dug a bit more deeply into the pile I did find a knife in there. It was a chefs knife of fairly high quality. It didn't have a guard or pommel, and I kind of remembered from some of my GM prep that this would mean that I would be just as likely to cut my hand as my intended target, it was surely better than nothing, and so I put it in the loop of my belt. I made a loop with a piece of string and my belt and it sat well enough after being pushed through the loop and not quite cutting through it. I wasn't hungry enough yet to take food away from people who might come here in emergency, but I was thirsty and it had been more than five hours since I drank anything. I mean, I probably would have survived, but there were three half-drunk bottles of sports drink on the table, and I didn't feel too bad finishing one of them.

Then I moved to the quest board. Everything I knew about this tower suggested that if I could complete some quests for Artemis and be useful to the community, I could get rid of my useless Useless title, so I looked for what looked like the most difficult things to do. Aside from the testing poisons and warning of dangers quests that I had already completed, there were half a dozen more. Two were actually job postings- one to act as sort of a bouncer for the adventuring guild and another for a medic for the same. I didn't feel confident I could really pull of either, so I skipped those. Most of the rest were about gathering supplies and weapons. While I would keep an eye out for things mentioned here- medical supplies, food and drink, weapons, those weren't the sort of quests that I could go out and do with the intent of doing them.

I made it all the way to the bottom of the whiteboard until I found a quest worth taking. It was another sticky note like the others and it said

Quest: The Missing Expedition A group of adventurers have ventured out to explore the Southern reaches beyond this guild. They have not been heard from in hours, though their quest should only have taken them no more than one. The guild will award experience to any adventurer that brings information about their fate and the state of the Tower south of the guildhall. Please inquire about details with Artemis.

"Hey, Artemis, what's this about?" I said. "Hm? Oh, some people wanted to help map out the tower and went down south to explore. It hasn't been too long, but I'm getting kind of worried," she said. "Yeah, I want to help, anything else I should know?" I said. "Well, it was a group of three, all men, seemed to know each other from, like, bowling I think? Sort of balding, a bit overweight, American Italian vibes," she said. "Yeah, hopefully I can just find them. In any case, I'll tell you what happened to them if I get to them," I said, "Has anyone else gone in that direction?" "I went down there a little bit, but when I didn't see anything new in fifteen minutes, I decided I'd be doing this instead," she said, "Be careful, your life should be your first priority, but if you could bring me a more detailed map, I would be happy to try put up another quest for that so we can maybe both get some experience." "Thanks," I said, "And thank you for everything you're doing here. I have a feeling that this is going to evolve into a vital resource for us here in the tower." "I'm not the one going out in the monster infested horror dungeon, Alex. But that's the hope," Artemis said.

With that and a wave from Clarence I left the guild with Chum in tow. What we had decided to call 'South' was the direction opposite the one from whence I'd come and it seemed less populated than 'north'. There were still some open doors here and there, but on the whole I didn't meet many people in the first fifteen minutes of walking and drawing, and then I didn't meet anyone at all for another half an hour. The layout wasn't changing significantly, but the frequency of rooms labeled Cafeteria, Teacher's Lounge, Gym and so forth did increase and I marked them all on my map. I did listen at the door, but didn't dare go in. Chum said something like the spike gremlin was unusually strong for a first challenge, but he couldn't say if it was because the tower was especially deadly or if it was because I'd gotten really unlucky with my first encounter.

I also kept in mind what I'd heard from Artemis about finding bodies in the hallways. I hadn't seen anything like that yet, but that did mean that there were some monsters in the hallways, so I made sure to keep my eyes open and only draw when I was stationary and had Chum keep a lookout. I was finding that he was happy to help out with minor tasks outside the contract, and while I was a little suspicious about it, I couldn't complain.

It was after one of those drawing stops, as we were reaching a crossing in the hallways that Chum sniffed the air and whispered: "Orcs. Maybe just the one. Careful." "Can I take one?" I whispered. "Maybe. Be smart," he said.

I crept slowly to the crossing and dared a peek. I saw it- him- and he was looking inside an open door. I moved back behind the corner. I didn't think he could see me, but I was in his peripheral vision. I tried to not make any sudden movements. The orc looked like one of the many archetypes I had seen in fantasy media. He was about a head taller than me, very muscled, especially in the upper body and his skin was lime green. He wasn't wearing a shirt, but I was surprised to see that he was wearing denim jeans. Maybe he'd killed somebody and looted them.

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Oh, and on his shoulder he held a battleaxe. I've seen real battleaxes in museums, they're not very large. The head of a real battleaxe was only a couple of fingers in size, maybe three held together. This axe was as tall as the man himself and the head of it was the size of two dinner plates taped together. It did not look like it would be unwieldy in his muscle-bound arms. My heart was racing, imagining that thing splitting my head open, brain splattering out. Okay, okay. We had ranged magic, numbers and the element of surprise. You couldn't ask for a better situation.

"Can we talk to him?" I whispered. "Probably not. Orcs are just as intelligent as humans, and can be reasoned with, but they don't put sensible, law-abiding orcs in planes of heroism. If we hit him, we hit him first and hit him with everything we have," Chum said. "If I hit him with a spell from a distance, can you-" I was interrupted by a scream. It was coming from the room that the orc had been looking into. My nails were digging into my palms as I balled my fists and ran to the rescue.

I had my spellbook out on the page of the icicle spell and had my mind on the shield spell. Focusing on the two spells made me almost not think about the fact that I was probably going to die in less than a minute. The orc had apparently entered the room that he was looking into, and I heard sounds of struggle from it. I slid to a stop looking into the door and saw the orc raise an axe over the covering form of a terrified man in his fifties. The man had a curl of gray hair and wore a flannel shirt with suspenders. As I had planned I aimed the spell so that it would hit the orc on the side of the head, I chanted the words, looked at the book and cast the spell. An icicle the size of a beer bottle flew directly into the orc's jaw from the left side, and shattered over it. I was aiming for the temple, but he staggered and roared and turned around to see me.

He moved so fast. I cast another icicle, this time from my own center of gravity towards him, but he crossed his arms in front of him, and while it clearly hurt him, it didn't slow his stride. He raised his axe overhead and swung at me, I yelled the incantation for Shield and the invisible barrier sparked into existence from nothing. The axe hit the shield, but the orc clearly knew the shield's weakness- it didn't stop momentum, only paused it long enough for the attacker to either draw back or me to leap away- so he kept pressing on it. In a second, when the spell elapsed, I would be struck by the gigantic weapon. I turned and started running, but a massive foot kicked me under the knee of the leg that I had all of my weight on, and so I fell on the floor jaw-first. My vision swam and I rolled around certain that I would only see my death, but what I saw instead was Chum sliding on his back underneath the orc's legs.

He pushed up on his shoulders, and with his hooved goat legs started bicycle-kicking the orc directly in the groin. I don't care what kind of an unstoppable juggernaut you are, getting kicked in the balls by a goat-man twelve, thirteen times in half as many seconds is going to slow you the hell down. The orc jumped back, and he was swinging wildly, barely seeing through his pain and while Chum was dodging, it was tiring the imp out quickly. I chanted the icicle spell over and over and over again, talking as quickly as I could, raising the book in front of me so that I could glance at the sigil and at the orc in less time than it took to blink. Three, four spells went through, dropping icicles on his head from above, before the orc picked up a desk and threw it at me. I was too focused on the icicle spell, so the desk hit me in the chest before I could throw up a shield. I felt my bones break under the force, and fell back on the ground.

I tried getting my breathing back under control, but each breath hurt. Chum had dodge-rolled out of the way and it was not like he could fight the orc one-on-one in a fair fight anyways. I was screwed. The orc took a few deep breaths, shook his head, raised his axe for a charge. I couldn't even close my eyes, staring at the monstrous man let out a roar. Then, the man who had been covering away from the orc broke a chair over the back of his head. The orc completely no-sold the strike, but as he turned around to finish off the nearest attacker, I saw blood on the back of his head.

The icicles were doing damage, and he wasn't as quick as he had been before. No doubt Chum's underhanded attack had served him some damage as well. And Chum came to 'rescue' once again. This time, with a loud gastric sound, a cloud of near-invisible slightly green-tinged gas filled the air around the imp and both the man and the orc started cursing and retching, neither able to participate in the fight for the moment. But the gas was quickly dissipating, I could even smell it, and even at this low concentration it was the worst smell I'd ever smelled. Rotten eggs, rotten meat, sewage all at once, neither overpowering the others. I tried to remember my biology. Where to hit him to do the most damage? Temple, groin, throat came to mind, but he was bent over, so I couldn't really get to either.

Ah fuck it, damage adds up over time, I cast the icicle spell over the back of the orc's head what must have been ten more times before the gas dissipated enough for him to stop throwing up. Each chanting hurt my broken ribs and bruised lungs. As he tried to stand back up straight I saw that he was damaged severely. He breathed heavily, moved sluggishly and could barely focus his eyes on me. So I cast the spell again, returning his gaze with an icicle in his eye. He was no longer quick enough to dodge. With the sound of a grape popped by a wooden mallet his eye splattered and the icicle entered his head. He howled in pain and fell to the floor.

"Fuck this," I said and drew the knife. I stumbled to the orc and started stabbing downwards. A few times my hand slipped and I cut the insides of my fingers, but the orc was no longer really fighting back. And a few seconds later he was not moving either. I looked down at the bloody, desperate dead form underneath me and I knew that it was another thinking, feeling creature. And I heard a scratching from my journal and it felt good. I was beat up, covered in blood, but even still that scratching activated some dopamine receptors in my brain and fucking Hell but I hated how good it felt.

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