Retainer Ad-Venture Contest (EU) - Entry Thread

[Gaignen]

Full Party
or Why You Should Be Happy With Your Seven Tin Pieces and an Abalathian Smelt.

It had been a long time since me and the others had met up. Several months in fact. The mistress had hired all eight of us, some time ago, starting out with just two of us, on her seemingly unending mission to solve all the world's problems on her own or, at the very least, with a group of friends no larger than those who sat with me now, at a table in a cut-stone pub in the desolate, but central, Revenant's Toll.
"So she's shelling out for all of us at once now?" Toumlona was as rough-edged a Sea Wolf as you could expect, which didn't fit at all with her profession of sitting around all day waiting for something to bite. We called her Tommy.
"Guess you could put it that way," said Galelma, Au Ra like our mistress, and bearing a striking resemblance to the woman herself. Thanks to our lady's tendency to have Galelma model clothes for her on the go, we took to calling her Glam. By we, I mean me. I love nicknames.
"We get to go on an adventure together? Hurray!" Nobody was surprised by Memelo's happy outbursts. Her pink hair was always in view to keep us well aware of how upbeat such a not-tall person could be, which was why her surprising tendency to be mean in a scrap always came as the bigger surprise.
"We should have a plan, I don't want anyone getting unnecessarily hurt," muttered Enya. Shorter only than Tommy, Enya, a Highlander, was our resident worrywart, taking after mistress studies in arcanima to better control a situation and, more importantly to her, protect her friends. "What has mistress contracted us for in any case?"
"In truest terms, mistress has contracted us each individually. Her terms were not particularly clear." Quipette, consummate Elezen noble wannabe, had been brought up in the butt end of Limsa, but then, with Mealvaan's Gate just around the corner, she picked up a book and soon was more travelled - and better spoken - than any of us. Don't let her bookishness fool you, she's no arcanist, she liked getting her hands dirty. The dusty, mud-coated pickaxe leaning against the table told the truth of that. I called her Pet.
Ikyutsuu, our quiet, newest member, immigrant with the Doman population just last year, gave an agreeing nod. We would give her a nickname, but we're not sure if she knew how to use that hatchet for more than logging, or what her temperament was like. Honestly we knew very little about her. She was a short, braided red-haired Hyur, that much we did know.
"We can pool our skills though, right? You don't think mistress would be upset? Maybe we're overstepping... what do you think, T'kni?" Flo was Flo, I wanted to give her a nickname too but Twelve help me I couldn't think of one that didn't make her name longer. She's a Midlander with a taste in dark clothes, dark makeup, and she would apologise for the weather if it rained.
"No worries!" I chipped in, my ears and tail standing to attention. "We'll just team up, split the spoils and report back separately!" I grinned. "Aint a reason mistress has to know we teamed up."

So that was how I, a marauder and our resident token happy kitty, teamed up with a tiny pugilist, a huge fisher, a lanky arcanist, a bored bard, a thaumaturge who apologised for every spell, a super-polite rockbreaker and a woodswoman who barely ever spoke. We set out North, donning warmer clothes and passing through the Doman refugee camp toward Coerthas. Glam was picking at her bowstring in a tune to make the malms go faster, she learned every song she knew from mistress, which wasn't many, because mistress didn't often play for our kind of crowd. Honestly, we all learned from mistress, she was a woman of many talents.
Snowcloak is a series of caverns in a mind-boggling arrangement, and it has only recently been claimed and held by the city-state of Ishgard. With all those thousand-thousand passageways, it wasn't a surprise that the local town of Whitebrim was hiring any capable looking sorts to start work on mapping the cave system. It was perfect - I could help Enya keep everyone safe, Memelo, Flo and Glam could deal with threats in the rear, and we could rely on our gatherer's knowledge of water (frozen or otherwise) stone and vegetation to keep a good track of where we were going. We set out into the caves through the entrance and into the network, branching off far before the place where, once, in one of her more giving moods, mistress had told us the story of her journey through - that night was one of the ones where she plucked at a harp and sat with us, and Glam had plucked at her bow in tune, learning by ear.
Exploration is long, and tedious, so it was just as well something interesting happened not twenty minutes after we got in. It started with a cave in.
"Everyone please, remain calm," Pet said to us, surveying the way back.
Okay, so when I said interesting I might have meant terrifying. The ice was on all sides of us, and Pet and Tommy were giving both ice-falls a once over. Tommy was the first to speak.
"Hey ho, check this one out," she smirked. "You hear the water? We're under a glacial melt - you know there are fish that love this stuff."
"A melt?" Pet sighed. "We can't mine ahead then, back is the only way. It could take us hours to get through ahead and we may well find ourselves under a river when we do."
"Umm," Flo raised her hand nervously. "Sorry if this is a dumb idea," see? Apologising. "but ice melts, right? I could melt through it."
"We're on a downward slope," said Tommy, "it's a solid plan if we go forward, follow the flow of the melt."
"Alright," Enya announced, putting on her leader voice. I love it when she does that. "We keep close and Flo, you take the lead, T'kni," she looked to me, my ear twitched. Sorry, but she once told me off in that voice and it still stings. "be ready to pull Flo out of the way if things go south."
"Got'cha," I gave Enya a thumbs up, and winked at Flo. "I got you Floflo." Nope, still sounds dumb. Better luck next time.
"Quipette, you bring up the rear make sure the heat isn't going to bring the rest caving in behind us."

We made our way out of Snowcloak the fast way. It took us about the same time to get out, but that was because as much as Pet might know about rocks and preventing cave-ins once we were well past the first obstacle she wouldn't have been able to do anything unless she stayed behind, and Enya wasn't letting that happen. We had just broken out into a wide, white landscape that looked nothing like the Central Highlands when we heard a familiar roar behind us. Tommy started laughing from the middle of the pack.
"Saddle up kiddies, we're going for a ride!" I grabbed Flo immediately, and I saw Memelo do some kind of Ala Mhigan martial somersault onto Tommy's shoulders. Just as the water hit I saw Glam drawing her bow and aiming, and then the world was a churning mess. Has anyone ever told you how difficult it is to swim in heavy armour? Difficult! Mostly I was scrambling sideways to try and get out of the melt. When I finally burst out, Flo sputtering in my arms, I could see Glam holding a rope attached to the side of a cliff by an arrow, still in the tide of the raging water but in control, looking about for others. I saw a pink blur come sailing out of the murk and Glam grabbed at Memelo's hand and threw her my way, to the bank of what looked like a new river. Memelo landed gracefully, then struck a pose, grinning.
"Best. Adventure. Ever!" She was laughing, rolling around next to Flo, who was still coughing up water, like me, but I still managed a laugh between coughs. I saw Tommy clambering along Glam's rope toward shore, Glam was holding on to a shivering Pet.
"Where's," I coughed, "where's Enya and Ikyu?!" Glam gave me a look, something that seemed to scream 'calm down'. Weird how well it works when your eyes literally glow with that amazing ring around them. Glam set Pet to clambering up the rope, which she did in good time by using her pick as an extra handhold in the ice below.
Then I saw the surging shape - red hair and a green hooded robe, plowing downstream. I ignored the water in my lungs and started running. Memelo and Tommy joined me, but we weren't catching up, and I could see a drop ahead, where water had only just started surging over into whatever land was far below it.
The shape came to a stop smack bang in the middle of the melt, practically on the precepice. It took a good few minutes for the water to slow, and by that time the others had joined us. Memelo donated one of her heavy Horas to Glam, who was about to swing the rope with the weight attached when Tommy stopped her.
"What, stealing my thunder? Fishing's my gig, twinkly eyes, move over." Glam nodded with a small smile, knowing that in spite of Tommy's boistrous argument, she wanted to make sure there was the best chance of casting this very important line the right distance.

We reeled in Ikyutsuu and Enya and the Arcanist, after coughing up her body weight in fresh water, made sure everyone was okay. Ikyutsuu sat the whole time looking toward the newly formed waterfall, and Pet was whistling in amazement at something below.
"What's up?" I asked our quiet botanist.
"My axe," she said, and I could see what she meant. "Mistress gave it to me, but it dislodged just as the rope reached us." It was the most I had ever heard her say, and it was clear that it meant a lot to her.
"No problemo, we'll get down the bottom and fish it out, Tommy can fish up anything, even people, didn't you know?" I grinned at her. I was vaguely aware of Tommy saying that she wished I'd stop calling her that.
"Doesn't matter," Ikyutsuu said, "I'll get another, as long as it's the same." - She didn't say another word, but I found a letter from Ikyu the next day among my things, for the record, which quite elegantly (in brushed script) said that it didn't matter whether it was the exact axe - that axe had fueled her since she came to Eorzea, but losing it to keep other people alive was worth more than the coin it had cost mistress and more than what it had meant to her. Losing the axe - she said - was worth being given a thousand.

After a long trek, some interesting rope-shooting from Glam, and an encounter with a recently-roused Polar bear during which Memelo had decimated it with strength that I have no idea where it came from, we found ourselves clambering up into the area called Behemoth's Dominion, which, due to its unsettling rumours lead us to rush quickly toward Whitebrim. It was on this journey that Tommy noticed a fish had been caught in Enya's hood, and after about ten minutes of the arcanist curling into a ball and expressing her disgust, Tommy managed to tell us that we had, quite by accident, caught a rare variety of Abalathian Smelt called The Matriarch.
"We're selling it," Enya said immediately. "Ikyutsuu needs a new axe, we can't have her turning up to mistress asking for another, mistress does enough for us already."
"Unnecessary," Ikyu mumbled, but I thought I saw a glint in her eyes that told of her gratitude.

The fish sold for an amount of Gil that left most of us flabbergasted, and we discussed with great glee what we could buy for mistress that could appropriately demonstrate the majesty of the quest, the trial we had just undergone, we bought Ikyu a new axe, just as shiny as the one mistress had given her, and chattered all the way back to the square, but that was before we met with the levemete who had overseen the job we were given.
"You were hired to explore," he said, "not to adjust the landscape of the Western Highlands' lower reaches and cause irreparable property damage to an outpost of... of some importance." I almost argued, Pet had told us about the old wooden watchtower down in the valley that had been carried away by the melt. But Flo was already apologising profusely.

When it was over, and we had been suitably fined, we had just enough gil to buy another Smelt, and then we exchanged the rest with a local trader for some Allagan Tin and started back out for Vylbrand and mistress' home in Mist, Enya holding - in spite of her protests - the fish that she was going to present to the mistress.

How in the seven hells are we going to explain this?



Character: Phoenicia Malquir
World: Lich
Desired item: Scarf of Wondrous Wit

[Gaignen]

SNIPPITY

So I was evidently overexcited and missed the part about a word limit. Guess I'll write it again. Gah.

[-Krypyonite-]

Character name : Achalys Frostbolt
World : Lich
Prize wanted: Ahriman chocker
________________________________________-
Well, i'm not sure if rules allow it, but it said a ''short story''. Bards in taverns tell them all the time, so here it goes the tale of Miss Fortune, from the retainers prespective. (pun intended) (if i can't submit this, please say.)


For money and glory.
I bring Honey and story
No time to say sorry

Master wasn’t fond,
Of the fortune I’ve been had
The contract meant to end
In his eyes I saw mad

Stolen from his Neighbor
“Why a goddamn roof?!”
With sneaking and labor
From this crime was no proof!

For venture I travel
For venture I wander,
I entered the Navel
Then fled in a thunder

Redemption was possible,
I listen the whisper
A one last resolve:
A sole Kingly Whisker!

With Might but no Aim
I stay strong,
I take claim

I began to understand
Like a child with a toy,
With Gil in his hand
In his eyes I saw joy.