Blind Chaos - Tales Beneath the Dragoneye Moons

Ranthia was feeling much better after some sleep—and more bowls of rabbit stew provided as bribes from Tatius and an apology from Pupius—and the three reported to the local Adventurer’s Guild as soon as they were done with breakfast. The job board was a staple of every Guildhall, always located in the same place, to the right of the entrance.

None of them were entirely literate, but Remus tended to rely on simple glyphs and unmistakable visuals. There really didn’t need to be a ton of details on the face of most jobs, especially not when the Adventurer’s Guild employed staff that could provide further recorded information. The basics were usually clear.

Usually.

“The kid was right, stolen statue. Apparently a marble statue, twice the height of a man.” Pupius announced when he returned from checking in about one of the jobs they had seen.

“How in Xaoc’s glorious name…?” Ranthia blinked.

She had assumed something much smaller.

“No one knows. It was a small town north-east of here. Some eccentric artist that had been cast off by his patron moved there and created it before he killed himself. The town hoped to attract curious travelers with it, but somehow it vanished overnight, along with a merchant convoy that seems to have been operating under a false business name.” Pupius answered.

“Yeah, pass.” Ranthia decided.

Investigations work tended to result in a lot of nothing. It was all too probable that some guards in another town caught the guy before they finished following the trail, and then they’d get nothing out of the job. If the guards arrested the guy, they wouldn’t even get the pittance provided by giving the Guild a reason to take the job down.

“Oh, I forgot the fun part. Apparently, the statue is of a naked woman. Lovingly detailed by a master [Artisan], they say the details between her legs…” Pupius trailed off with a grin.

“…Go on.” Ranthia prompted.

“Don’t, please don’t twist her mind.” Tatius grumbled.

“You mean any more than it already is?” Pupius asked with a wide grin.

“Hey, I have more sense than either of you!” Ranthia replied with an angry glare directed at both men.

[*ding!* [Cute] has reached level 59!]

Ranthia twitched ever so slightly in annoyance.

“Anyway, I’m actually thinking about staying in town for a while.” Tatius announced, likely as an effort to put them back on track.

“Wait, really? I thought you were making a joke so you could try to find that hot little number you were talking to last night again.” Pupius replied.

“No, I just think we’ve been traveling too much lately. We’re not too bad on funds and my leg probably needs a bit more time to heal so I can stop limping. Besides, Ranthia could use a chance to socialize with children her own age.” Tatius explained.

“That sounds horrific.” Ranthia quipped with a grin.

Tatius gave her a look. Oh gods, the man was serious. Ranthia blanched. She was supposed to be freed from pretending to be a child since she was an Adventurer!

“What are we even going to do here? There’s bound to be a dearth of jobs in the vicinity, this is a pretty big Guild branch.” Ranthia hurriedly attempted to guide the conversation away from something that was certain to result in an incident.

“Nah, they’re actually down a lot of members from some big escort job.” Pupius chimed in.

Not helpful!

“I’m going to take a few days to rest. There’re several jobs here Pupius can do alone, if he’s in the mood.” Tatius explained.

Ranthia saw her opportunity and opened her mouth—

“In the meantime, I’ve already learned that there’s a park where children gather to play. I’ll drop you off there before I head back to the inn.” Tatius clearly wasn’t done.

Ranthia cringed and looked desperately to Pupius for help. The man saw her look, considered carefully, then smiled.

“Actually, I could use a day or two off myself. Let’s all take a break!” He said with entirely too much exaggerated enthusiasm.

Ranthia sorely considered drawing her knives and fighting her way out of the situation.

Tatius had requested that she hand over her knives. She refused.

He tried to demand that she hand over her knives. She refused.

He then tried to bribe her into handing over her knives. She still refused.

Eventually, the man threw his hands up and just asked her to not cut anyone before he released her into the park. His leg was starting to bother him more, again, so he was more than ready to sit down and sip alcohol while he relaxed. He was willing to trust her, it seemed.

She wasn’t entirely certain that she was going to prove herself worthy of that trust.

The park was crowded. Children ran amok, squealing and shouting while they played everywhere she looked. There were far too few parents around to possibly sufficiently supervise the crowds of shrieking children.

It was terrible.

Ranthia weaved around a cluster of 8- to 10-year-olds that were playing soldiers versus formorians—which apparently was just a thinly veiled justification to beat each other with sticks—as she meandered deeper into the park. There was a group playing some sort of game that involved a ball they chased around and tried to smack over an old net that stretched across the field. Then there were some smaller kids sitting in a suspicious puddle of mud while they made pretend food out of the mud.

Ranthia carefully stepped over a kid that seemed content to lay on his back and stare at the sun, as if that were a perfectly valid thing to do.

Children were awful.

“Oi, new boy!” A voice called out.

Oh Xaoc, please let that be something else.

“I’m talkin’ to you! The one with the stupid brown blanket wrapped around you!” The same boisterous voice shouted a moment later.

Ranthia lowered her head and sighed, before she oh-so-slowly turned toward the source of the voice. A big—both in terms of height and waistline—boy in his early teens stood there, surrounded by several other smaller boys (both by age and sheer size).

“Okay, first of all, this is a leather cloak. Second, I’m not a boy. Third, go away.” Ranthia spat.

“Yeah, whatevs, just follow me. M’ da says I can’t kill wind weasels unless I’ve got a group of at least six. You’re my sixth!” The boy declared, before he turned and began to walk away.

Ranthia blinked a few times before she shrugged and followed. It got her out of the park, at least.

“What do you mean by kill wind weasels?” She asked.

“New kid’s dumb. Y’kill wind weasels by killing ‘em, same as anything else!” The boy non-answered.

Ranthia just eyed the other kids, until one of the shorter boys that was probably older than he looked finally spoke up.

“W-wind weasels are a local pest. That’s not their real name, mind you, but no one calls them kamaitachis. The city offers a s-small bounty for their pelts, since it proves you k-killed them. The problem got w-worse a year or t-two ago, since s-someone bred more to abuse the b-bounty.” The nervous boy explained.

“I’m goingta buy my betrothed something pretty from Bakus!” The big teen announced.

Ranthia had no idea what most of that meant because she was mentally sent reeling by the fact the boy—he had to be three years her senior at most—was engaged and invested enough in it to buy his betrothed gifts!

It felt oh so wrong in so many ways.

Still… Something the nervous kid said…

“Can anyone turn in pelts for the bounties?” Ranthia asked sweetly.

Ranthia was all smiles by the time they arrived in a less-well-off part of town. The best part was that the bounties were paid by the Adventurer’s Guild now, since the local government had made such a mess of things! A way to earn some coin and earn a name for herself with the Guild? It was win-win!

“Jus’ stand back and watch!” The big teen boasted before he stomped into an alley.

The teen waited until one of the small rodent-like creatures that flew around the alley landed on the ground near him, then leapt. He landed on it and stomped four times before the kill notification popped up.

“Ha! See, ‘m the greatest young person in the city!” The boy preened.

Ranthia laughed out loud before she could stop herself.

“Wot, y’think you’d do any better, blanket girl?” The boy challenged.

“Sure!” Ranthia replied with a smile. She brushed past the flabbergasted boy—a boy that was nearly merely a third her level—before she drew her knives and let them pop out beneath her cloak.

It was time to earn some spending money.

Ranthia was a predator, and the wind weasels had been her prey. She had feasted well, metaphorically. The kids were watching so Ranthia mostly stuck with her knife work and a few pulses of [Light Haze] to foul attacks from the wind weasels. There weren’t any levels in the slaughter, but it was fun.

And profitable.

Though Ranthia’s ego was still bruised when she was forced to take a wind weasel out with [Metal Conjuration]. Had she dodged the rodent that went for her eye, it would have landed on the boy’s face. [Parrying] had fused into [Combat] seasons ago, but her knives were out of position. She still didn’t have the speed to get them back in time; it was the major flaw of being a [Mage] that fought like a physical classer.

Thus, she was forced to put a metal spike through it.

The System awarded weight based on not only her use of her classes, but how she made use of her skills. Skills used to directly attack and kill were not where she wanted her Metal class, nor her future Mirror [Mage] class, to go. She always put her best effort into not using her classes in ways that were inconsistent with her future plans.

But she wasn’t quite willing to let a kid get mangled in the pursuit of perfection, not even an obnoxious one.

Just one (more) ‘incorrect’ use of her magic shouldn’t be too dramatic of a problem for her someday.

She hoped.

Still, the day had been nicely profitable. She was so grateful that she even bought a cute little copper wire bracelet decorated with silphium seed shapes for the boy, so he could give it to his betrothed. It left her with plenty of coin.

After that she hit the baths—blessed cleanliness and warmth—then managed to find a stylist that actually had women that handled the haircare. Ranthia was feeling good and [Cute] with her new short hairstyle; it wasn’t trendy, those styles always required longer hair than she wanted, but the stylist had done beautiful work off of her own best judgment. [Cute] had loved it too, rewarding her with three more levels in her overly neglected skill.

“There you are! Where on Pallos have you be—wait, something’s different.” Pupius cut through the crowd with a stormy expression while he studied her.

Ranthia just waited with a happy smile.

“…You little shit, you didn’t swipe Tatius’ purse!?” Pupius scowled judgmentally.

“No! Gods, have some faith! I earned these funds myself. I was going to buy dinner for everyone, but if you don’t think I should have money I’m happy to just buy for Tatius and me.” Ranthia snapped with a glare.

Pupius immediately made the appropriate apologetic noises.

No one could resist the allure of free food.

They spent a bit better than half a year in Aquiliea. Tatius’ leg had healed up in less than half that time—with some cool new scars to boot—but they had lingered long enough that they got comfortable. Pupius had spent quite a bit of time with a widowed woman a few years his senior, and for a time it looked as if he would put down roots.

At least until Tatius and Ranthia returned from a job to find Pupius drunk off his gourd yelling at the wall about how women were terrible fiends worse than the most vile of monsters. Some hurts precluded ever getting a coherent explanation about what happened.

Ranthia had been determined to hunt the wind weasels to extinction, but she ultimately learned a harsh lesson about the adaptability of even relatively stupid creatures. In the span of months, wind weasels turned from an incredibly aggressive pest that was stupid enough to bash its own head in on her [Iron Decoys]—they made the best indignant death squeaks when that happened—to thieving scavengers that fled from the merest trace of a human’s presence.

[Silent Steps] helped, which made Ranthia more effective than most of the others that bothered with the paltry bounties, but the creatures had even stopped gathering in large groups. Wind weasels might have become a fact of life in Aquiliea, but they were no longer quite the (minor) menace they had once been, at the very least.

Finally, one day, Tatius, Pupius, and Ranthia stood in the Adventurer’s Guild surveying the jobs, and Tatius put voice to the thoughts that had been in their heads.

“It’s time to move on, we should take a job that leads us out of town.”

Pupius and Ranthia quickly agreed. Aquiliea was comfortable, but they also weren’t really building up their funds. And no matter how many bloodied pelts Ranthia turned in, it was clear that the local Guildmaster wasn’t going to make her a real Adventurer.

At most, the man seemed content to shield her from those that complained about the diminished population of wind weasels (though seriously, what on Pallos did those idiots think the bounty on them was for?).

A job was selected—bringing seeds to a farming community that masqueraded as a village to the west—and they vowed to leave in two days. Adventurers needed to venture out!

Ranthia allowed herself time to rest and enjoy the amenities of civilized life for most of her time, but not all of it.

She had some chaos to wreak before they moved on. She had a plan—okay, fine, a notion—and was pleased that she would finally have an opportunity to carry it out. She hadn’t wanted to get them driven out of town, but now that they were leaving anyway…

Bright and early the morning of the day they planned to leave, a nervous Ranthia paced back and forth before the doors to the local temple. Why on Pallos did temples close for the night?! She waited anxiously, her cloak twisted back behind her shoulders to look more like a cape, her chest—such as it was—thrust out and her hair styled and tweaked so many times that it had almost become a nervous tic.

Finally, the doors opened.

Ranthia brushed past the priest that had opened the door and tried desperately not to run through Aquiliea’s temple until she knelt before the altar for Xaoc, God of Chaos. Yes, technically, she was able to pray anywhere she wanted, but when Ranthia had access to a proper altar she preferred to make use of it!

Plus, she was reasonably certain that the guard wasn’t going to search the temple.

Aquiliea’s temple was lovely and spacious, but it was near the bottom of Ranthia’s list of favorite temples simply because the local priests were jerks. A man named Sacerdus—an elderly man who acted superficially warm and friendly but was so rigid and cold that Ranthia only learned his name out of spite—almost always manifested out of nowhere to keep an eye on her. A judgmental eye, at that. Priests that were unattached to any particular deity always seemed oddly prone to becoming entirely too rigid and orderly, as if Seira herself poached them.

Predictably, the man showed up just in time to try to prevent her from setting her offering on the altar. Ranthia simply gave him the stink eye when Xaoc accepted the offering, and the ball of colorful mud vanished in a trivial display of divine power. Arrogant idiots like Sacerdus that thought they understood the gods completely, better than anyone else ever could, ticked her off.

Being a generalist meant you failed equally at everything, and no one with an orderly heart could ever truly understand Xaoc!

As always when she prayed, Ranthia opened up her mana pool to her god. Xaoc was free to take whatever He felt He needed or wanted while she prayed, and for her longer prayers her mana regeneration allowed Him to take even more. What the gods did with mana given through prayers wasn’t something that she truly understood, but she was confident that He put it to good use.

And it did her little good sitting at full inside of a town.

Occasionally, when she prayed, Ranthia heard Xaoc’s voice. It wasn’t incredibly common; He tended to remain busy—likely like each of the five great gods—and Ranthia suspected that Xaoc preferred to speak only when she least expected it. He still paid attention though, she always felt… not quite emotions, but at least a suggestion of how Xaoc felt or reacted to what she shared. She experienced sentiments like understanding, comfort, or amusement.

…Yet as Ranthia regaled Xaoc with her night’s chaos-inducing mischief, she felt the god’s laughter.

“I’m still not sure how I managed it, but at this point all sixteen of the governor’s prized pigs are inside of his manor. They just… went for it! Even from outside I can hear the governor screaming at his guards not to hurt them. And the big one, that sow? I go to peek inside and she suddenly comes into view again, charging right at me! I threw out a [Homunculus of Light] more-or-less reflexively since she’s taller than I am and probably weighs more than Tatius and Pupius in full gear combined! She veers off and—I swear I’m not making this up—crashes through a door in the hallway. The loudest crash you’ve ever heard rings out…

“…Then she comes running back into the hallway and runs deeper into the manor. Except now she’s covered from snout to butt in blues, teals, and greens! She had smashed into barrels of dye and now as she ran deeper into the governor’s estate, she covered everything in dye. Everything! I was backing away because I was sure the city guard would show up soon, gods know the noise coming from the manor was loud enough. Then, just before I circled back into the alley I used for my approach, what did I see?

“The governor, in his small clothes, covered in dye! He ran out, chasing three of the smaller pigs, trying to catch them with his bare hands! Except they’re somehow covered in dye too and they just slipped effortlessly right out of his grasp, and this left him off-balance… and yes, he crashes face-first into the ground juuust as the city guard arrived. He starts yelling at them to help him catch his pigs!

“I was laughing, which was dumb and one of the guards saw me, so I made myself scarce at that point. While I made my way here, I overheard the guard talking about how they’re hunting an eight- or nine-year-old boy who might be responsible for letting the pigs out. …Have I mentioned how glad I am that I keep my hair cut short? Even if I am eager to start maturing already. Still, glad we leave soon, I’ll just have to keep my head down on the way out.

“It’s too bad I’m not a bit older, I’d love to have pretended to be a traveling artist. I’d bet every coin I’ve got that I could have convinced him to leave his home vibrantly dyed. ‘Oh, this is just like what the wealthy have been doing in the capital, except the energy of it is far better than anything I have ever seen!’”

Ranthia wiped the tears she had shed from her own laughter from her eyes while she waited for her patron deity to conclude His mirth. A somber thought drifted through her mind, which made the task even easier.

“…I hope none of the governor’s people got into too big of trouble over this. I wasn’t planning to make that big of a mess.” Ranthia added after a bit of self-reflection.

Xaoc acknowledged her concern. Though, if she was honest with herself, she wasn’t completely certain if Xaoc shared it. She loved chaos, but she lived in a society. She loved to add fun chaos to the world that brightened lives, but the idea of chaos that resulted in slaves being beaten or lives ruined just seemed sour to her. Xaoc understood and accepted that, but He hadn’t provided any clear indication whether He agreed with her or not.

Ranthia, for one, chose to assume the lack of a rebuke or suggestion to embrace the darker sides of chaos meant that He largely agreed with her on what the ideal expression of chaos was, even if He wouldn’t wholly reject other aspects of chaos.

Time spent with her deity was precious to her. She avoided asking Him questions though. She knew that Xaoc had the answers to the questions that occasionally kept her up at night, the questions about who she used to be… But those questions were for her to chew on, she had no intention of bothering Xaoc with them. Ultimately, it really was irrelevant, which she had to remind herself of every now and then. Whomever she had been, that [Paladin] had failed Xaoc.

So, she was determined to be the sort of devotee that the God of Chaos could be proud of. Ranthia wasn’t limited by who she was; she wanted to focus on who she could become. Because that was who would bring more chaos into Pallos and, ultimately, become worthy of Xaoc once again.