It had already been some time ago since Griswold had taken it upon himself to go to the large library in the royal capital in order to study up on venomous serpents. Since it was one of the requirements posed by the person who was taking on a small crew to venture into some archaeological dig that was given the green light by the wizard king himself. Whether it was related to the upcoming fight against the archdemons or not, Griswold believed that there were two possible explanations for this fact. One of them was that there might be something down there that was useful from a historical or a military perspective, the other being that it might contain ancient lore that might help them win the upcoming fights that could potentially change the country for the better or for worse. Regardless, he imagined both of these things would be useful in some way or shape.

So while he himself was not the kind of person that enjoyed prancing around in the royal capital, or enjoyed doing missions that did not exactly work towards the benefit of the forsaken, he did not hate having to make exceptions for missions that were generally for the good of the country itself. After all, if they could find something that could help them turn the tide against the demons, that was not something that solely aided the nobles, the commoners or the peasants, it aided everyone by proxy. So with his newfound knowledge regarding venomous snakes, which for some reason seemed to be of importance, he made his way over to a place called “Da Inn”, which seemed like the kind of place that was put up by someone who barely spoke the language, or wished to create a pub where all of the city’s illiterates could gather for a pint of ale. Whatever the case, as he made his way over to the place, it seemed that he was not the only person here who wished to get on board.

Noticing members of various magic squads, he figured most of them had come here to round up some golden stars, as well as more reputation for themselves and their respective magic squad. While not the worst thing in the world, Griswold generally did not care much for people who only did things for the sake of building reputation for themselves, believing them to be the kind of people who either had something to prove to themselves or to someone else. In a way though, he too was the kind of person that was working to gather reputation, though that was not for himself. He had gotten a reputation for helping commoners and peasants, but not for the sake of getting said reputation, but for the sake of helping the people. Which went to show that if one simply did the things one had to do in life, chances were they’d get exactly what they were looking for in the process.

That said, there was no telling whether the thing that worked out for him would also work out for others, and it didn’t matter either. He hadn’t come here to lecture others. Instead, he had come to seek approval from someone who seemed to have a bit of an attitude about her, which was generally not something he enjoyed. But seeing as how it was an attitude in the sense of being picky about who to choose for the expedition, it was something he could deal with for the time being. During his royal knights training exercise, he had come to find out that people not being picky made for some really annoying situations, and no one wanted to be stuck with people that simply could not look after themselves and might put both them and others in danger because of it. The fact that Griswold was still bothered by this was speaking volumes, as he really did not like the idea of heading into an Archdemon’s abode with people he could not trust to have his back.

But that was something he could worry himself over some other time. For now, he made his way over to the section of the inn where his query was located, a woman going by the name of Ilhiana Vones, which was quite the peculiar name, though he was not one to judge. Due to the amount of people that wished to sign up, it turned out that she was assigning people with numbers, at which point they would just call out the number of the person that was up next. Sighing deeply, he took a number and just sat himself down by the bar. There was really no need for him to just stand with the masses and boast about this or that, not when he might as well treat himself to an ice cold pint. So as he sat down and ordered his pint, he thought about the woman he had seen, and how she seemed to be rather focused and tough. That at least was good, as it meant that those that should not be inside of an old temple would not get their invitation in the mail.

By the time he was called up, he left his empty pitcher on the counter and wandered over to the woman, who asked him what his reasons for even wanting to join were. For him, this was a really simple question to answer, as he wished to go down there to see if there was perhaps anything there that could increase their odds of fighting the archdemon threat they currently faced. Whether that came in the form of some old magical weapon or lore and information from the days old, that did not really matter to him. Also making it clear that he had ventured into some elven ruins before and fought against wraiths and banshees while trying to break a curse placed upon a stolen artifact by returning it, it was at that point that Ilhiana seemed more interested in his personal story. As it turned out, most of the people that had come here today were just those seeking either personal glory, or glory for their squad in the eyes of the wizard king while having no real interest in archaeology.

Not trying to fool the woman in that he was not head over heels in love with archaeology, he did make a case about how he had often felt more like an elf than he did a human, and that his mixed bloodline often brought about some difficulties in his day to day life. Whether it was dealing with nobility, human cruelty, a general disregard towards nature, they were all human qualities and aspects that he could not really grow to love. As such, he welcomed the idea of venturing into old tombs, temples and compounds so he could get a look at how things were being done in the past, and where things might have gone wrong. And if this temple happened to be of elven origin, that just made it all the more interesting for him. After a momentary silence fell over the discussion, he was asked about what kind of things he could do, which caused him to pause for a moment. Explaining that the vast majority of his spells were of no use in an old brittle construct, he did say that he was quite handy with a sword.

That, and his control over healing magic had grown to the point where he could basically restore a mostly broken human body, even growing back limbs and organs if need be. Making him into both prime bodyguard and medic material, it seemed that the all things together made him into exactly what Ilhiana was looking for. Handing him a piece of paper with a date and a location as to where they would gather before heading out as a team, he wasn’t told to bring any additional gear besides what he was normally planning on bringing, which was a good thing. He wasn’t a pack mule after all. That, and he wouldn’t be of much use as a bodyguard if he had to carry everyone’s stuff, making it that much harder to properly wave around a large blade. But now that he was in, he could finally make his way out of the royal capital again, seeing as the meeting place was to be somewhere in the forsaken realm, which worked out perfectly with his other endeavors.

Earlier this same week, he had saved the life of a young peasant boy from the nearby forests of Hage, where he had also confirmed for himself that werewolves were actually quite real. Moreover, they seemed to be the cause of the local wolves going into a frenzy and becoming a lot more rabid than usual, venturing far outside of their ordinary territories. Were it not for this particular meet and greet session with Ilhiana, Griswold would not have even gone to the royal capital to begin with, not when he could now just do his debriefs inside of the forsaken realm. That alone was reason enough for him to want to become a black bull, so he would not have to keep traveling up and down if he wanted to maintain his title as a magic knight while still helping the same group of people he had sworn to protect. What with this archaeological find now being attributed in part to the achievements of the black bulls, it only made sense that they got credit for it as it was within their region too.

Hopping onto his broom and racing off towards the forsaken realm, he believed that all of this would have given him enough time to get to the black bulls base and venture back into the woods in order to settle the werewolf problem in Hage once and for all. With the expedition being two days from now, he simply had to make sure that he finished up his other work before then. After all, getting picked for the expedition and not actually showing would just reflect badly upon himself and his new squad, and that was not something he could risk. Were it just his own reputation that got tarnished over something he did, he could live with it, though he did not want for others to suffer because of the mistakes he made along the way. It was in part due to that same reason that he wished to return to Hage as soon as he could because of something the boy said.

Since the werewolf, who turned out to be a man from Hage was the one who had lured the kid to some strange and remote cavern deep in the woodlands bordering and reaching into the fringe, at least according to the child himself, Griswold had to check out whether or not there were others in the village that were werewolves. Because of the fact that wolves were not solitary hunters and tended to roam in packs, he had to at least consider the option that the same went for werewolves. Since wolves roamed in packs and humans usually lived in clusters in the shape of towns, villages and cities, it all just made a whole lot of sense to him. As someone who had been hard at work within Hage, working with the community to restore their buildings and help them collect more resources towards this same goal, it seemed strange to him that there were those within the village that had malicious intentions towards one another. Because at the end of the day, they were a community.

So as he made his way towards the forsaken realm, he made mental notes as to all of the things he had to do in a relatively short amount of time. Feeling like he might very well have planned things in way too small a time frame, it just meant that he had to go about it smarter and faster.

2006

[Exit Thread]