Tales of the Pearly City (Pearly Tales Vol.1) [Completed]

28. Going on an adventure

[Countdown to <Ragnarok>]

[1 month] [28 days]

"When are we going to do some adventuring? I thought this was an adventurers guild." Naomi whined as she wiped off the tables.

Yvette straightened the chairs. "He's been gone all night, Ophelia's been worried sick."

Ophelia came downstairs with Tiki, "is papa home yet?" She rubbed her sleepy eyes.

"No love, the master will be home soon, for right now breakfast is ready." Wendy brought out some food for Tiki and Ophelia.

WHAM!

The main door of the guild building flew open.

"Greetings, noobs! We're going on an adventure!" Calloway stood in the doorway carrying a couple of magic bags and miscellaneous weapons.

"Papa!" Ophelia ran up and hugged Calloway.

"Hey squirt, want to go on an adventure?" Calloway handed her a bag.

Everyone started protesting.

"Naomi, Yvette, quit your moaning. Ophelia's a higher level then both of you." He tossed a bag to each of them.

"What!" Naomi and Yvette protested.

"My baby girl here is level 25," Calloway ruffled her hair.

"T-t-t-twenty five!" Naomi dropped the bag. Naomi was only level 21 where Yvette was level 19.

"The poor residents of the city of Perils have been living an easy life. Poor Ophelia was resilient against what the city of Peril had to throw at her and grew stronger from it. Namely the crueler of its residents." Calloway rubbed Ophelia's head again. "Tiki there is one for you too." He threw tiki a magic bag.

Wendy just shook her head. "Do you expect me to run this place all by myself?"

"Of course not," Calloway tossed her a small rectangular object.

Wendy read it and she looked at Calloway with dead eyes, "this is a name tag."

"Just put it on and check its stats."

Wendy sighed and attached the name tag. At first it only said her name and then some inscriptions started writing themselves above her name.

Assistant Guild Master

Wendy Starchaser

Increase all stats base stats by 10%

Defense +160

Card based powers cost 50% less to cast

All cool downs are reduced by 75%

Only useable by Wendy Starchaser

"Okay, it's a fancy name tag." Her dead eyes never changed.

"Ouch. I spent half the day on that thing, it's made from Obsidian dragon scales, Orichalcum, and ultra-refined moon sliver from the lost Elven moonstone mine."

Wendy's jaw dropped, "You're lying." She inspected the badge again.

[Assistant Guild Master Name Plate]

Restrictions: must be selected by Calloway Calphius

Made from the finest materials from dragons, and lost elven treasures. Made by a Master Artificer with careful preparation and the diligent concentration the exceeds a master dwarf craftsman. Only a handful of masterpieces in the world can rival this artifact's craftsmanship.

Wendy paled as she looked at the name tag. "You've got to be shitting me!"

The looks on Naomi's and Yvette's faces were priceless when they heard their mom curse.

"That's more like it, by the way the castle will be sending by some staff until you can hire some new help. From this point on you have all the authority of a guild master as long as it doesn't supersede my decisions. Some of your duties while we're gone is to promote the guild, hire part-time help, and start collecting requests no matter how big or small. I don't care if it's killing a dragon or collecting herbs from the forest."

"So that's the catch, you're just pawning all your responsibility off on me!" Wendy waved the tag at him.

"Everyone go pack some spare clothes for going into the forest, I need to discuss some things with our new assistant guild master." After shooing the others away, he approached Wendy with a seriousness that she didn't see out of him very often. "Unfortunately, it isn't that simple."

** ** **

"So Fenrir is still around," Wendy and Calloway both sipped tea in the guild master's office. "If what you're saying is true, then we are in dire straits indeed."

"As your master I could make this a command, but this is a large responsibility so I'm going to give you an out. As a friend, will you help me shoulder this responsibility?" Calloway asked.

"You really are an idiot aren't you!" Wendy sipped her tea.

Calloway played off his embarrassment with a fake laugh.

"This is my home and if I can help, I will. Servitude isn't a practice I favor among the elves, but I don't begrudge your treatment of my family or saving my daughter's life."

"Thank you for your help, Wendy."

"Yeah, yeah, just don't let anything happen to my daughters. By the way you never told me where you are going."

"The dark forest."

Wendy spit out her tea as the door opened. "Pfffft! Wha!"

"Hey boss, we're ready to go!" Naomi peeked in.

"Well, gotta go!" Calloway hopped over the desk and slammed the door behind him.

"CAL!" Wendy called after them.

Calloway sighed when he closed the office. There he was greeted by a nerve wrecked Tiki.

"W-we're n-not g-going o-outside the castle a-are w-w-w-we?" Tiki was shaking to the point it was a wonder that the building wasn't shaking.

Tiki and the other high Elementals were absurdly powerful so that they could defend the city but in order to contain them, and prevent from going rogue all of them had a quirk.

Tiki was basically a shut in who didn't like unfamiliar places, but there was one thing that could be done to get her to go anywhere even though she didn't like new environments. It was a little embarrassing now that Calloway had to employ it himself.

"Don't worry Tiki, I brought it." Calloway's face flushed as he pulled a black collar decorated in white lace with a leash.

Tiki's bunny ear became stiff as boards and the blue hair contrasted against the red of her checks. She squealed with joy while drool leaked out of the corner of her lip. She bent her neck toward Calloway.

Calloway eye twitched. "Honestly, if I had any clue that you'd be such a deviant for this I would have given you a different leash instead of a literal one." Calloway fixed the clasp around Tiki's neck for the second time since she'd been walked down to the guild building. He tossed the end of the leash to Naomi. "This one is yours for now."

"What do you mean 'this one'? Wha!" Naomi was shocked when Tiki got too close to her face with a strange happy glow in her eyes.

"I'll follow you anywhere, master." Tiki trembled excitedly.

"Cal! She's really freaking me out here. Cal!"