Capítulo 42: 42 [2in1]
After Arthur won the battle over Frankie, he also won something else that he did not anticipate. He won the adoration of his fellow adventurers. These were a group of people who valued ability above all else. It could be pure brute strength or magical brilliance but as long as you showed yourself more capable than others, they would shower their admiration upon you and welcome you into their fold.
After all, as adventurers, their lifestyle demanded that they be tough. The toughest among them would be the strongest and theirs was a line of work that held the strong in great admiration.
That was how Arthur found himself with a group of lackeys. He was quite fazed by the whole thing. He tried to get them to treat him like the normal guy that he was but they simply could not wipe out the adoration in their eyes when they looked at Arthur.
In the end, Arthur had no choice but to concede to their affection, at least he had managed to get them to stop referring to him as boss. That was already a great concession on their part.
After the ceremony was over, Arthur got himself settled at the headquarters, asking for a room to stay. Lady Morgan processed his request quickly.
That afternoon, the other adventurers came knocking on Arthur's door, saying they were going out for a celebration, to celebrate that they had all passed the test and became level D adventurers.
With nothing else better to do and thankful for the guide around Celestia, Arthur agreed to their invitation.
After realizing this was Arthur's first time to the city, the group of adventurers took it upon themselves to show their new 'leader' of sorts around the city. There were two main features at Celestia, that would be the Coliseum where the annual tournament would be held as well as the Pantheon where many religious events took place. Temporarily, Arthur had no business to do with either of these places so he just memorized the location for now before moving on.
After that, the adventurers introduced Arthur to locations that would prove to be helpful to his adventures. These included the item and equipment shops with the best price. Arthur's tour of the city ended at Fever Dream, a local tavern that served the cheapest ale, at least according to the group of adventurers.
When Arthur woke up, it was already the next morning. He looked around and realized he was inside his room at the adventurer's guild headquarters. Arthur had no recollection of how he got there but at least, nothing seemed to be missing or out of place. That was certainly an interesting welcome that he got.
Now that the fun part was over, it was time for him to settle down to start his first quest at Celestia. At Armana, Arthur would accept quest at Ol' Smith's tavern but here, that could be done directly at the headquarters. The person that he needed to talk to was Lady Morgan.
Arthur freshened up and went down to the lobby. Lady Morgan was already at her seat. Arthur approached the lady and stated his intention.
"Wonderful, I hope you're excited for a new job." Lady Morgan greeted him good morning and explained the situation, "For quests that are under level A, please do refer to the notice board over there. For those that are above, the leaders will hand them out to the adventurers directly.
"When you have confirmed your selection, please give it to me and I will try my best to fill you in on the quest details."
Arthur wandered over to the notice board in question, and Arthur realized the board was much larger than the one back at Armana. Even the quests offered were much more varied in nature, in the terms of difficulty level, quest location and party size.
Arthur was looking for a quest that was below D, near Celestia and only required a party of one. Unfortunately for Arthur, there were not many of those to go around. He scanned through the notice board and eventually settled on one. He plucked it from the board and gave it a closer read.
The quest was to look for a missing person. The target was a citizen of Celestia. That sounded simple enough and it fitted Arthur's criteria perfectly because it was a level D quest and only required one person to complete it.
Arthur walked back to the counter and handed the piece of paper to Lady Morgan, hoping to get more information related to the quest from her.
When Lady Morgan accepted the paper, her face clouded over with emotions that were akin to concern and guilt. Seeing this, Arthur asked, "Is there anything wrong? Do you need me to pick a different quest?"
Lady Morgan recovered, "No, it's alright. It's great that you have selected this quest." Then she added something that confused Arthur, "It is better that I leave this in the hands of someone capable."
From what Lady Morgan said, it sounded like she was personally invested in this quest. Just as Arthur was about to ask Lady Morgan for clarification, she admitted, "I'm sorry for confusing you but it is just that I was the one who submitted this quest."
Even though Arthur had an inkling of that suspicion, he was still quite surprised by the admission. However, after he gave it some thought, he realized it was quite understandable. After all, even the general staff who worked at the adventurer's guild headquarters would require help from the adventurers from time to time. General staff like Lady Morgan were normal citizens at the end of the day.
As long as he was paid, Arthur did not mind who the quest giver was. He asked Lady Morgan, "In that case, how can I help?"
Lady Morgan sighed. "As you already know, the quest is to look for a missing person, and that person is a personal friend of mine, Lady Myra."
Lady Morgan allowed a pause for Arthur to react to the name drop like he should have known who this Lady Myra was but Arthur just frowned at the unfamiliar name. Lady Morgan looked at the confusion on Arthur's face and then it dawned on her. "Right, I almost forgot you're not from this city so you wouldn't have heard of Lady Myra's name."
Then Lady Morgan went into a long introduction on Lady Myra's legacy. "I suppose you can call Lady Myra an heiress. However, her family is not tied to the ruling party or if they were, that happened so long ago that it does not matter now. Her family has no political influence is what I'm trying to say.
"However, this does not take away from Lady Myra's pull in the other aspects of the city's social circle. She has inherited plenty of fortune from her family and she would not need to lift a finger to live a luxurious life for as long as she may live.
"Lady Myra's family has all passed away and she is the only surviving kin. Unfortunately, she is not yet married and has no progeny of her own. This means that after her passing, her family's legacy will end with her. I've always told her to lower her standard but the woman just refuses to listen..."
Lady Morgan caught herself and she apologized, "Look at me rambling away. Forgive me. The quest is more important.
"I assumed you would know Lady Myra's name because everyone at Celestia knows her. This is not only because she came from an influential family but also she has made a name for herself in the world of art and painting. She specializes in nature and landscape painting, and is the best painter Celestia has ever seen..."
Before Lady Morgan diverted herself from the topic again, Arthur reminded her to keep the topic right on track, "Impressive but how is that related to her disappearance and the quest?"
The mention of the disappearance brought a frown to Lady Morgan's face. She seemed to really share a good friendship with Lady Myra.
"I'm sorry, you're right." Lady Morgan collected herself before continuing, "About a few weeks ago, Lady Myra came to me, telling me that she has come across an artifact of magical power."
The mention of magical artifact made Arthur's attention return. If this was a musical artifact, then he could have sacrificed it to gain a new power from Aoide.
"Apparently, she came across it through her contact in the art world. She wanted the guild's help to appraise the artifact to see if it would help improve her painting skill. If the artifact is deemed too dangerous, then she will donate it to the guild.
"However, at the time, the guild was too busy to prepare for the advancement tests. The advancement tests happen annually but these requests to appraise supposed artifacts came more often than you might realize. It could have been a total bust, after all, there are way too many artifacts of normal quality going around. The guild believed this might be one of those. Everyone was preoccupied so I told Lady Myra that she would need to wait. I will send someone from the guild to her place when the test period blows over.
"As it happens, the number of adventurers that registered for this year's advancement test was not as high as the guild anticipated. Therefore, by the end of the test period, some of the examiners and staff were quite free already. So I sent one of them over and he came back to tell me Lady Myra could not be found. He asked around the area and none of her neighbor knew anything. Lady Myra would not have left the city without informing her neighbor to look after her house so that chance of her leaving the city is very low. It was as if Lady Myra has disappeared from the face of the world.
"There's a feeling inside me that says that her disappearance has everything to do with that artifact she found. They could only find residual magical power at Lady Myra's, which suggests that the artifact is real and even perhaps more powerful than the guild anticipated, but is currently missing. Isn't that suspicious?
"This is why I have posted that quest. I hoped that someone would help me find out what has happened to Lady Myra and rescue her if she is in some sort of trouble."
...
As Arthur headed over to Lady Myra's place, he arranged the quest information that he had received so far in his mind. His quest objective was to locate Lady Myra who has had a mysterious disappearance and Lady Morgan suspected it has to do with a magical artifact.
The artifact had disappeared alongside Lady Myra so it was hard not to make that connection. In any case, Arthur reminded himself not to jump to conclusion and prepared himself to solve this mystery.
Lady Myra's townhouse was at the affluent side of town. The place had a garden and it was large. Like what Lady Morgan said, Lady Myra stayed alone and there would be no one to answer the door. Hence, Lady Morgan handed Arthur a key at the adventurer's guild which he used to gain entry into Lady Myra's place.
Arthur had not been to a painter's house before, in fact Arthur was pretty sure he did not know any painter in his life. Armana was too small of a village to accommodate the arts when everyday living was a problem.
Other than the normal rooms, Lady Myra had space dedicated to her art gallery. It was filled with paintings that either she had bought or she painted them herself.
Arthur would not call himself an art connoisseur but even an amateur like himself was impressed by the paintings. Like Lady Morgan said, Lady Myra specialized in landscape so most of the paintings were about nature. They looked so vibrant in Arthur's eyes.
Arthur gave himself a tour of the place. He did not find anything out of the ordinary. There was no trace of Lady Myra or the magical artifact.
There was a smaller room attached to the gallery and that was the last room Arthur entered. From the looks of thing, this room appeared to be Lady Myra's studio.
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Lonelytree
Lonelytree I will greatly appreciate your power stones, comments and reviews <3
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