The Runesmith

“Everyone listen up, we will be arriving at the rendezvous spot with the rest of the caravan, you have one day to rest before we set off, you won’t be paid if you don’t show up in the morning.”

The guard leader shouted out while standing really close to Roland. This caused a somewhat sleepy barbarian to wake up. Both her and Roland were still stuck on the large cart that carried a portion of the merchant’s guards.

Grisalde was her name, at the start of the journey she was quite loud. But after a few hours of the bumpy journey, she had fallen asleep. While Roland had a skill that kept him from falling asleep he was convinced that the woman had a secret skill of the reverse effect. He could not imagine being able to sleep this much while being stuck in such a confined place.

“Huh, what? Are monsters attacking?”

The guard leader returned to the inside of the wagon he was riding while Grisalde had woken up. Clearly, this woman would be susceptible to sneak attacks luckily there were enough scouts and archers to signal if someone was attacking. Roland as well could use his mapping feature to scan the area for potential enemies.

‘So this is where the rest of the adventurers are supposed to join us?’

“Halt, let me see your papers! … I see, it’s Mr. Reymund’s caravan.”

Roland saw the guard change his tune fast after the merchant’s name was mentioned. He could also see that a few coins made it into the hand of the gate guard. This was quite a typical scene as searching through the wagons was something the city guards were supposed to perform.

Each city could have slightly different rules for any contraband. Normally the merchants would have to go through a long process of frisking, then if something that was forbidden was found they would be given a fine. Thus even if they were clean it was better to bribe the guards that could make life hard for them.

Roland had heard stories of the soldiers planting contraband during the searches. In this one, they found an occult relic that caused the merchant in question to get a death sentence. The item used was then found out to have been placed by a competitor that bribed the guards.

This world was really cutthroat when it came to money, his little squabble with the union didn’t sound so bad. At least they didn’t use underhanded tactics like that, otherwise, he would have probably had to leave the city he was in a long time ago.

“Damn, why is my ass so numb, I need a drink!”

After they were inside the city the barbarian woman he shared the wagon quickly made her way towards the first tavern that she saw. In the contract, they had signed the adventurers were free to wander the cities as they were there to fight the monsters. But they would not get any coin unless they arrived at the last destination and had the merchant sign it.

This agreement favored the job giver quite a bit. If the merchant decided that the adventurer didn’t do their job properly they could withhold the money. Then a long process of back and forth with the guild workers would start to see if the claim was valid. Luckily the guild could blacklist a merchant like that if they abused their right to withhold money.

Yet if the merchant was still unwilling to fork up the silver coins, they could not be forced. The blacklisting wasn’t the end of the world but the adventurer in question would not get paid. Sometimes the guild covered some of the expenses but that also depended on the adventurer’s rank. This was also one of the perks of having a better rank as the guild tended to side with their high rankers over the merchants.

“Remember, we are leaving early in the morning!”

While everyone dispersed into the city fast Roland was left wondering where he should head out to. Most of the silver ranked adventurers came in smaller groups but he was going solo. The city he was in was mostly a hub of commerce, the merchants just unloaded their wares into the auction house or the merchant union warehouse. There it would be sorted and distributed to various stores.

‘Should I visit the auction house or get some food instead?’

This was somewhat troubling as for the first time in a while he found himself with nothing to do. Back at home, there was always some work to be done either crafting or doing a quick dungeon run.

‘That person will be arriving in the morning so I don’t need to look for them, this city lacks an adventurer guild… I should go to an inn first before all the rooms are taken.’

After thinking for a while he decided to search for a place to stay first. With this being such a busy city it might be hard to find some lodging. He did not want to spend his night in a barn with some other broke adventurers. The days of him not being able to afford comfortable living were long gone, this time around he would live his life a bit more.

Thus with a slow step, he went towards the city area while also being sure to note down where the meeting spot would be. With time he also hoped to implement a waypoint system into his helmet along with it being able to map out areas he had been through. He needed to do something about the size of the map as it quickly clogged up all the space in his runic items, something like a compression method for the data was needed.

‘I could also try storing it on an external runic drive or something, could just carry it with me during the dungeon exploration or have the golem do it instead…’

Even while in a new location his head was filled with more runes. Now with things calming down, he could finally start innovating. Golems were not his end goal but only a part of his arsenal that he could expand.

‘Maybe I should make a helmet for Agni when I’m back before we visit the mining area. He's probably not going to reach tier 3 in some time. He can use attack spells himself so some barriers to cover his weak spots.’

Roland could already imagine enemies being confused when a monster specializing in fire magic started using other elements out of the blue. Maybe in the future when Agni had his true growth spurt he could fashion him a barding as he was getting to a size of being a possible mount. Finally, after about thirty minutes of wandering around, he had found an inn that looked passible.

“You don’t have any rooms?”

“Sorry sir but you’ll have to look elsewhere.”

To his surprise, he was unable to get a room for himself even when he b-lined it for the closest inn he could find. When looking at the guests he noticed a small oddity, all of them looked like regular citizens and not adventurers. A thought crept into his mind but he could not confirm it yet so he headed to another establishment.

“Ah, I’m sorry we are all out of rooms, have you tried the Black Rose Inn instead?”

Soon he visited a second and a third inn which caused him to believe that the people in this city didn’t appreciate adventurers too much. All the places he visited had steeper rents than regular adventurers would be willing to pay.

‘Are they afraid that adventurers could cause property damage? There is no guild here either…’

While in a city with a proper adventurer guild they would have no choice to house the rowdy daredevils, in ones like this it was somewhat a risk. Adventurers tended to not be the educated sort that resolved most of their problems with force.

It was not surprising that they would be turned away if there were other clients the hotels could house instead. This city had a lot of merchants going through it so there was a large supply of people with deep pockets that didn’t have battle classes. It seemed that he would have to look towards the lesser establishments that did not have a problem with adventurers like him.

‘Next time I should probably remove this armor before wandering the city, I look like some vagabond knight…’

While walking out of one of the places that he was refused he could tell that the regular folk were looking at him. He was a large man dressed in shiny armor that was under a dark robe. It gave him the look of someone that shouldn’t be crossed, the innkeepers also seemed nervous when they conversed.

‘Can’t really blame them…’

Adventurers were a rowdy lot, many times they would get into fights which meant property destruction. Most of the time after it was over they would just flee the scene while the guards were too lazy to chase after them. Even Roland had gone through with some destruction when he beat up the party that hurt Bernir. Luckily for the tavern keeper, he received enough money to cover the destruction.

It seemed that he would need to lower his standards and seek another location. The people kept bringing up the black rose inn so after asking for some directions he headed towards it. This brought him to a louder part of the city where he could already see some people getting into fights.

‘So this is it huh…’

The sign was indeed a black rose, but one of the chains holding it had broken and the paint made the rose look more gray than black. The building was quite large though and without even entering he could already smell the cheap booze.

His instinct was telling him to turn around but if he needed to find a place to stay for the night. Luckily due to his imposing appearance, even the seedy-looking people averted their gazes when they saw him walking down the alleyways. Even thieves had enough sense not to try anything with an armored man wearing a sword on their side.

After arriving inside he quickly looked around to find the inn keep. There was quite a lot of space here that was mostly occupied by other people sitting around circular tables. Cheap booze was being served even though it was the middle of the day. In the back, he could see a set of stairs that probably led to the rooms that could be rented.

“What will it be?”

“Are there any free rooms?”

“There be, four small silver for the night, if ye want food with it it will be five.”

The gruff-looking man answered him while polishing some plates. There were some people that were eating but the food looked quite basic. It reminded him of the cheap inn that he used to stay in and the unseasoned meat he forced down each day to minimize his expenditure. After growing accustomed to Elodia’s home cooking it would probably be a lot worse this time around.

“No that’s fine, I’ll just take the room, do you have a curfew?”

“No.”

After dropping the four small silver coins he was given a key with a number attached to it. With there not being any curfew it meant that it would probably remain loud all until the night. Yet with the help of his sound blocking spell that wouldn’t be an issue.

“One bed with an old straw mattress and a window, this seems about right…”

He mumbled to himself after entering what looked more like a large closet than a proper room. There was enough space for the bed and for him to walk to it on the side. They clearly made the rooms as small as they could to save on space.

“It’s hard and this smell…”

Roland gave out a sigh after placing his hand on the bed he would be sleeping on. This was really a return to his roots of adventuring that he left behind. After having his own home and a close-by dungeon he started recalling all the bad sides of this type of work.

‘It’s just going to take a week or two, I’ll manage.’

With nothing else to do, he decided to take out his own sleeping bag that he had in his spatial backpack that also had a pillow inside. He had prepared some quality of life runic spells beforehand, one of them could get rid of the smell in this room and also purify the bed of any potential fungus.

This he did by just activating it through his palm, no chanting was needed as he could easily control everything through his runic armor. After everything was sterilized he finally sat down on the bed that now had his sleeping bag rolled out on it. The trip here took a few days so even he was tired thus instead of searching for food he decided to take a nap.

…..

….

….

“Stop running away you little shit!”

“Huh?”

While dreaming of himself riding an Agni covered from head to toe in golden armor he was abruptly awoken. Someone was shouting downstairs and turning the whole place upside down. The sun had gone down as he found himself in a pitch dark room with no light coming in.

“Get back here!”

“Wait… that voice…”

His room was somewhat close to the stairs leading up so he could hear everything. The sound canceling spell was not used by him this time around as he was actually tired enough to turn the quick nap into full-time sleep. The voice belonged to the large lady he spent the last few days with, it was her that was getting in some kind of fight.

While he could just ignore the whole scene for some reason he got interested in what was going on down there. If the barbarian lady got herself into trouble here it could also jeopardize the expedition, with one less gold rank to help along the way he would be forced to pick up the slack. He did not want to get himself involved in squabbles between adventurers but not like he had anything better to do. Soon he was out of his room and going down the stairs on which a couple of people were already watching the spectacle and speaking.“Damn, that big one looks mad.”

“Hah, they are demolishing the whole place, that runt sure is nimble though.”

“Think she will escape?”

“Probably not, her party members were taken out fast.”

Roland listened in on the conversation while walking forward. When he passed them he could finally see the flipped tables and chairs. Grisalde was there chasing after someone but he couldn’t really see as that large body was blocking the view. Down on the ground, he could also see two people that were holding their faces, one of them was even bleeding from the nose.

‘Wait… is that?’

Familiar looking dwarf: “Aye, she clobbered me good”

Familiar looking human: “At least she didn’t break your nose you idiot, damn it hurts.”

The two were slowly getting up from the ground while Grisalde was chasing after someone else from their group. Even though many years had passed Roland’s high intelligence stat made him recall who these two men on the ground were. Their history was brief but they had gone through a life and death experience together which he still recalled.

‘That woman is clearly drunk… do I really need to get involved?’

It wasn’t set in stone that anything serious would come from her raging out. Yet she was injuring people for some reason if this continued it could end in an ugly fashion. She was someone above level hundred that could reach tier 3 soon. With the alcohol in her system, she could easily kill someone with those fists of hers.

Then there was the weapon that would probably be able to cleave people in half. If she was enraged even further than the two people that he knew could lose a limb.

‘But who is she chasing around? Is it that sun elf?’

“Hey, I won fair and square, leave me alone!”

Then another familiar voice entered his ears, this one carrying a lot more memories than the two adventurers that were on the ground.

‘Uh wait… could that be?’

After hearing the voice Roland moved closer towards the commotion. With some force, he pushed his way through the people that were cheering on the destruction. The familiarity of the people being involved made him interested enough to go check it out, perhaps he did need to get involved in this one.