Alanna rifled through the alraune's former belongings. Some of it was just shiny junk, like empty potion bottles or belt clasps, but a lot of it was quality adventurer gear: Some daggers and swords, pieces of an armor set. She found it a little distasteful having to take these things from amidst the bones of their former owners, but Alanna wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. She'd need this stuff a lot more than they did.
She couldn't quite figure out how to feel. She had beaten a powerful monster on her own again, but this time she had to admit she lucked out. She doubted she would have escaped if the alraune hadn't been ignorant enough to dry and drink from her unlabelled bottles. Her hands were shaky, and her right arm was still useless. She had drunk an elixir, but she doubted it could reset the bone for her. She'd need an actual healer for that.
That's when she found something strange amidst the boneyard. At first she thought she saw another spear sticking out from the bones, but when she grabbed it and pulled, she realized it didn't feel like metal. It felt like bone, and it came attached to what looked like a horse's skull.
"No way..." she gasped, as she realized she had stumbled on one of the rarest treasures of the wilderness: A unicorn's horn. Known as a powerful reagent for magical spells, or for crafting magical items, it was worth a small fortune all by itself.
Immediately Alanna understood why this alraune turned out to be so powerful. Monsters did not have levels, but they did exist in their own hierarchy. Some monsters were naturally stronger than others, though monsters of a certain species could grow into more powerful forms. Usually this was indicated through by calling them "Lesser" or "Greater" versions of their species to indicate such relative strength, and monsters could kickstart their evolution into these forms by killing something more powerful, like higher level adventurers... Or in this case, a more powerful monster.
She had no idea what could have led a unicorn to the alraune's glade, but she imagined it was the meal of a lifetime. It may have even happened between the moment the Adventurer's Guild scouts found the alraune and now. Many more adventurers could have died before anyone realized, if not for her, which gave her a much needed confidence boost. She had accomplished something good here, and the unicorn horn was a more than worthwhile reward.
Eagerly, she took her pouch of silver dust from her backpack, activated it with a bit of mana, and rubbed it on the unicorn's horn. The reaction was immediate, each grain of silver that touched the horn began to glow, then vibrate as they overcharged with magical energy, then they launched themselves into the air as a glowing mote of dust. Alanna watched in wonderment as the air around the unicorn's skull turned into a miniature midnight sky, a cloud of glittering silver stars.
With some effort she managed to cut off the horn and stuffed it with the rest of her loot. It was likely the most valuable thing she'd gained from here, but she wasn't done yet. She similarly used the silver dust on the alraune's corpse, only to find there was no reaction. She quickly deduced that again, the alraune was unlikely to have most of her magical essence in her "fake" body, and after testing the flour found that the sap from the flower's bulb was what contained the alraune's magical essence. She extracted some into an empty vial and stoppered it, then began heading back to Wildbrooke.
The wood pygmies left her alone on her way back to the road, and on her way back to town. She figured that since they had been rallying around the alraune as a leader figure that her death had likely spooked the little imps enough to make even their reckless bravery falter. That was fine by Alanna, she'd seen enough violence for one day, and she didn't risk stopping to harvest anything from their dead bodies.
The sun was starting to set as she returned to Wildbrooke. The guards let her through with a nod, though not much surprise. "Glad to see you're still alive," the guard from yesterday said. "You newbies either come home battered like that, or not at all."
"Thanks, I suppose," Alanna said with a grin.
She figured she should return to the Adventurer's Guild as soon as possible to lay claim to her kill, but stopped at the entrance. She heard some familiar voices have a heated argument that had made the whole place go quiet.
"You irresponsible oaf!" she heard Renestrae yell.
"The girl offered to be our scout, she did her job, we did ours," Khilseith replied coldly, but loudly. "Anyone who goes adventuring knows the risks."
"She wasn't an adventurer! She was a civilian! If you take a civilian along you know damn well they're your responsibility!" Renestrae replied. Alanna could tell by the shaking of the half-elf's voice that she was genuinely upset. It warmed her heart a little, considering how dismissive Renestrae was at their first meeting. She didn't take her for the type that cared about strangers.
"She's dead because the info was faulty," Khilseith retorted. "That was no lesser alraune, that was at a minimum a greater alraune. The rest of us were lucky to get away with our lives."
Alanna seethed. She wanted to storm in there, punch Khilseith on his perfectly sculpted nose and then give him a piece of her mind. However, a more devious idea came to mind, and Khilseith couldn't have possibly set her a better stage.
She opened the door and strode straight up to the counter, making a show of clutching her broken arm. It did hurt, that wasn't fake, but the regeneration elixir she took earlier had taken care of most of her bruising and bleeding by now. She didn't need to support it, but she wanted everyone to see she was badly hurt.
Khilseith was at the front desk with his group, probably making a report after their failed attempt to kill the alraune. Renestrae was getting ready to yell at Khilseith once more when her eyes met Alanna's, and her expression turned to shock. "Oh my goodness! Are you okay?!" she called out as she opened up the gate leading behind the counter and rushed out to check up on Alanna. Her eyes got particularly wide when she got a good look at Alanna's arm.
"Oh I'm fine," Alanna said, loudly, wanting the whole Guild to hear. Most of the patrons had been subtly listening in on the drama, but having the Peasant girl walk back in miraculously alive drew a lot more attention. "It wasn't easy fighting my way out past the moving vines and the wood pygmies when they left me to die, but I managed."
"N-now wait just a second," Melissandre said. "We didn't leave you to die!" While Melissandre made a blundering attempt to lie, Khilseith stared at her with thinly veiled contempt. There were a few things that could kill an adventurer's reputation really fast. The big three were lying about completing missions, stealing from your fellow adventurers or clients, and of course, leaving party members to die when you could have saved them. Alanna was happy to see him realizing that her walking in right here, right now, was probably the worst thing that could have happened to him. Prutina was there too, but she seemed to be shrinking into her own long coat further and further.
"No?" Alanna asked with fake confusion. "Because I sure wasn't dead when you three turned tail and ran. I was busy getting dragged off by the alraune while you three made your daring escape. Which reminds me," she said, turning to address Renestrae directly. "They already confessed they turned tail and ran. I completed the mission, so I want the reward in full."
That seemed to snap Khilseith out of his brooding. His jaw clenched and he stormed up to Alanna. "You are full of lies, little worm," he snapped. "There's no way a Peasant could have killed that monster, not even with whatever Gods-damned luck you seem to have."
"I figured no one would believe me, so of course I made sure to bring proof." Alanna walked up to the front desk, opened up her backpack and pulled out a sack. She then shook out the contents of the sack, and to the sound of a few gasps, out rolled the half-burned severed head of the alraune.
Silence reigned in the Guild for several moments, before a gray-beard dwarf climbed onto his table, whooping and hollering before pointing at the human adventurer sitting across from him. "Suck it Franz, you Federation pig! Tonight I'm going home with your bag of coin for a change!" The dwarf tried to start some sort of traditional dance before mugs and other food items started flying, forcing him to duck out of the way. Turns out Franz wasn't the only one who made a wager that had gone poorly.
"I'm so sorry about this," Renestrae apologized as she ushered Alanna into one of the Guild's rooms. The building was set up kind of like an inn, except with more amenities, with some rooms being for rest, one set up with magical vaults to keep gold or belongings safe and Alanna was pretty sure she could hear a blacksmith hammering away in the back. The room they had entered was designed for private meetings, with a big round table in the center, along with quills, ink and scrolls, and a big map of the area surrounding Wildbrooke on the wall.
"It's okay," Alanna said. "I heard adventurers can get pretty rowdy."
Renestrae sighed wearily. "Being an adventurer is... It takes a special kind of person. There's always more demand than supply, so the Guild isn't usually picky when people come knocking with the right Class, and while we have a few core rules, we understand we're not dealing with soldiers. Betting is one of those things we ask them to please not do inside the Guild, but... Well, you saw what happened."
Alanna nodded, but was eager to move the conversation along. "Right, I understand. So, about my reward..."
Renestrae held up a hand. "A lot happened, obviously, and you're hurt. I'm going to have someone confirm that the head you brought in belonged to the right alraune, and if so I'll make sure you get your reward, with a bonus if the alraune was as strong as Khilseith claimed. For now, I have to insist we take you to our local healer first. Whatever happened out there, you clearly took quite a beating, and I don't want you to bleed out internally while you're being interrogated about your quest."
That put Alanna's concern about her reward at rest. She nodded and allowed Renestrae to take her hand and help her up from her seat. They left for a different room with a door marked with a dove holding a bandage within its beak. As soon as it opened Alanna was struck with the heady scent of dried herbs and soap.
This one clearly had a permanent occupant, with potion vials stacked up along a cupboard, while off to the side was a screen that sectioned off what looked like a bedroom and kitchen. A table dominated the room with a chair next to it, dotted with a few bloodstains that hadn't quite come up the last time someone tried to clean them, flanked by a desk that had a few tomes stacked on them. Alanna recognized one of them, a guide to herbs that Solizzar had owned as well, but at a glance the other books seemed to be about how to treat diseases, curses and charms.
"Claire, are you in here?" Renestrae called out. "Got another newbie for you."
"Coming!" said a womanly voice, followed by a bit of commotion behind the screen, before an absolutely massive woman pulled the screen aside to step into the main office. She was nearly seven feet tall, wearing a long black robe. Her curly black hair reached down to her elbows and Alanna saw two small, blunt horns poke through her forehead, and a long tail with a tuft at the end swung behind her with every step. Alanna figured she was some kind of half-breed and would have to be some kind of bovine. Her skin was pale and she had brown eyes set in a pleasantly round face. Though the robe did a decent job of concealing her figure, there was quite a bit too 'much' of her to fully hide, the healer having far more curves than any elf Alanna had ever met.
Alanna, having never seen any of the bigger humanoids that she was vaguely aware existed, looked up at Claire, and for a moment allowed her tongue to be a bit looser than she intended. "Big," she blurted out.
"By the Gods, I get that all the time now," Claire said with mild annoyance, pouting as she draped a white cloth over the table. "I can't help that quitting adventuring ruined my figure."
"Have you considered getting back out there?" Renestrae stated to deflect from the subject. "There's always a demand for healers, more than any other Class."
"No, I really can't," Claire said, her tone dejected. "Adventuring just wasn't for me. Too much violence, too much danger. In spite of the drawbacks of my new lifestyle, I'm quite happy being able to help actual adventurers from my office here." Claire then turned back towards Alanna, putting on a motherly smile.
