Chapter 27: Rewards and Curses

At length, the party made its way back to Astyanax, entering through the South gate with at least an hour to spare before dusk. They made straight for the guild hall after passing through the city’s enormous curtain wall. A guild representative quickly collected the still dazed and confused Eschenbach family, shuffling them off to a private sitting room from which other members of the nobility would come and collect them once a courier had been dispatched. At first, Lexi was a bit put off by the fact that not one of them even said goodbye to the three adventurers who had rescued them from capture and almost certain death, but she let it slide.

They’re probably all still in a complete state of shock, the paladin realized. They’ll have PTSD over this shit for years to come. Lexi almost laughed to herself then, realizing that she had completely fallen under the spell of the game world, and was thinking of the NPCs in more or less completely human terms — not at all as advanced software agents.

Once the nobles had been taken care of, the gild representative, a handsome dark skinned young man with closely cropped curly hair and almond-shaped hazel eyes, returned to the party. He directed their attention to the oversized leather book, set open on an ornate wooden bookstand.

“If the leader of your party would please submit the details of your adventure in the quest book, we can get your reward sorted out now.”

He had helpfully flipped the book to their party’s quest already, so Lexi took the quill and ink jar from him, hoping to Hell that her character knew how to write with something other than a ballpoint pen — because otherwise, Lexi would be out of luck. Thankfully, no such problems arose. The entry in the quest log was extremely straightforward, and all Lexi needed to do was to fill in the counts of who in her party had slain how many of what types of creatures, and as this quest included a rescue component, how many of the victims were brought back to the guild alive. Once she had completed the log, the guild associate turned the bookstand around to review her entry.

“OK,” he said cheerily. “Eight goblins at five a head, plus ten for the priestess, and an additional ten for each of the nobles your party brought back brings us to a grand total of eighty gold pieces for your party. Well done!”

He filled in the figures in the quest book, and then counted out eighty gold pieces from a chest behind the counter, linking them up in eight neatly ordered stacks of coins.

“Now,” he said. “If you could countersign, indicating that you’ve received payment, we’ll be all done.”

“Great,” Lexi said, beaming back at him as she signed her name with a flourish. “Nice doing business with you!”

“Likewise,” the man replied. “I’m sure we’ll find another good quest for your party once you’ve all had some well-earned rest and relaxation.”

And with that, he closed the quest book and went on about his duties. Lexi turned to Gretel. “Something tells me that you’ve got the best head for managing money out of the three of us, so I’m nominating you to be the party’s treasurer.”

“Seconded,” Samantha said immediately, her grin reaching up the steely gray eyes that twinkled with mirth from behind her shaggy white bangs.

“Damn,” Gretel said, placing a hand on her ample bosom and pretending to be taken aback. “I was going to graciously accept, but I guess I don’t really even need to since I’ve already been outnumbered. But if that’s the case, I’m making an executive decision as the official party treasurer that we’re going to spend a bit of this coin on some fine food and drink tonight.”

“Seconded!” Samantha chimed in again. “I can hardly remember the last time I was quite this famished. And, our victory on the field of battle today — our first as a party — calls for a celebration!”

“I’ll definitely agree to that,” Lexi said heartily. “Just one thing. Can we please find somewhere to get cleaned up first? I’d enjoy a nice foamy ale so much more if I’m not covered in dried goblin blood.”

“Agreed!” came the chorus from her teammates.

Their spoils of victory tucked away safely in one of Gretel’s many pouches, the party made their way back the same inn in which Lexi and Gretel had stayed just the night prior, the Red Hen. The innkeeper, a toothless old woman, gave them three adjoining rooms up on the third floor, and had one of her scullery maids run ahead of the adventurers to fetch washbasins and fresh water for each. Each party member retreated to their own quarters then, and spent the next half hour or so bathing, healing their wounds — as enough time had passed for all of them to be able to cast minor healing spells — and scouring as much goblin blood as was possible from their clothes and equipment.

Lexi decided that she could safely leave her armor and sword locked in her room, and headed down to the ground floor to grab a table at the inn’s tavern. Dusk had turned to night, and the paladin was unsurprisingly famished after all that she and her two followers had gone through during the day. It was hard for her to believe that this was still only her second day in Aeternia. But, looking back on the adventures she had already completed, she was more than a bit shocked to realize that she already felt more at home in Fantasy Adventure Quest’s game world than she ever did back in the “real” world.

Her thoughts carried the paladin over to an empty corner table, where she sat alone until the voluptuous pink haired mage slid onto the bench next to her. Just the sight of the freshly washed curvy girl — her large breasts nearly spilling out of the corset she wore as a top, and juicy white thighs blossoming into view beneath the matching gold-trimmed black miniskirt the mage wore — was enough to absolutely cement the fact in Lexi’s mind that she had indeed found the place she belonged. Lexi, the futanari paladin, was quickly filling her new life with girls who were not only good friends, but eminently worthy adventuring companions. It didn’t hurt that they were both gorgeous, albeit in radically different ways.