Remember the “cowboy sheriff” I met a few days ago? Good. I haven’t seen him since. Maybe he went back to his home world. Remember my search for dear old Jaerlaxle Baenre? Yeah, well guess what? Dead end. The guy knows nothing about nothing.
So, I’m ready to do the walk away and go to the Moonstone Mask to watch the dancers and drink some ale when I get an itch to walk into the Acquisitions Incorporated guild house. Word was they were giving out gold and items for doing odd jobs. Odd jobs I can handle. It’s killing dragons that I do not do by my lonesome.
“Hail adventurer,” a stalwart calls out to me at the other end of the hall. He’s your standard guy. Armored up, deep voice, cocksure attitude. I waltz on over.
“Came for a job. You got any?” I say, feeling salty as hell.
“Name’s Omin Dran,” the guy says, grinning at me. He couldn’t see my boobs. I was wearing a new getup. Standard wizard stuff: a sleek black dragon-scaled top and bottoms. Just another bloke. Omin reaches out with his hand to shake, so I shake, but not before I make my hand colder than his. I like to mess with warriors. What can I say?
“Like I said, you need something from a dungeon? I can do it.” I drive forward with the forwardness, letting him know I’m all business. Besides, this guy’s an off-worlder. I can hear it in his odd accent.
“You know,” he said, putting a finger on his dimpled chin, “Jim may have something for you. Hey, Jim, got something for a wizard type to do?”
“I have just the thing,” Jim says over by the display cases. He was tending the relics, bit of dusting. His eyes were wild and crazy. Just my luck.
“Name’s Jim Darkmagic,” he said, rubbing his hands on his silky bottoms before shaking.
“Name’s Isabel,” I say.
“Great, ok, so you’re a wizard looking for some spending dough? I have just the thing.”
I nod, ignoring how he simply skipped over my name. Rude. But I don’t care. I was willing to make coin.
“See,” he said, “I need some papers from the basement. Problem is, the last warlock who went down there called up some ghouls for some stupid reason and we can’t get rid of them. Mind killing them and bringing the papers? The name of the guild is stamped right on them. You can’t miss them.”
“Sure thing,” I say, “direct me to the basement if you please.”
“Ok, but just remember, please don’t burn the place down. We can’t afford to simply build another guildhall. Getting this one took a week of gambling.”
I nod, and Jim walks me over to the trap door. “Good luck,” he says, a bit anxious.
I shrug, return the grin, and sink into the darkness.
Author’s Note: I need to pull my warlock out of the mothballs. She’s been entombed for a few years. Time to wake up her up.
