Grandpa's Cabin

Chapter 6

“ What do you mean?” I asked, turning back to Alandra. When she answered I realized I couldn't understand her anymore. I looked around in confusion and Isaac must have realized what happened because he said something to Alandra before casting his spell on me again. “ There you go Jack, sorry about that, the comprend language skill only lasts around two hours without recasting.” I thanked him and repeated my question.

It was Kiara who answered me “ the Adventures guild prides itself on its discretion, any mercenary can fight a monster but not all can be trusted to remain quiet about the incident. With exception to criminal activity the adventures guild has a very strict confidentiality clause, it has only been broken by two individuals in the past 100 years the adventures guild paid triple the projected losses to the injured parties, one of the violators tried to run and hide and died under… unusual circumstances and the other accepted the consequences. He was a top tier adventurer who made around 100 platinum a year. He currently washes dishes at a guild restaurant and only three stores will sell him anything and only because the guild asked them to." The power the Guild held was terrifying as we discussed it more. It became clear to me it was a lack of desire and not ability that kept the Guild from toppling a nation.

“ Alright, how much should I pay you folks for this?” Alandra answered me after thinking for a moment “ our daily rates are higher than a general laborer. We normally work a flat rate plus bonuses such as number of enemies killed, extra herbs gathered et cetera. for this to be an official guild quest it would be one gold for me and one silver for the others. Isaac has the authority to authorize payments so if you don’t have the coin on you he can issue us a cut from what is owed to you.”

Knowing it would be a while before I got back and not wanting to part with my already in hand gold I agreed. With a quick signed note we had an official quest. Alandra gathered up the rest of her party and followed me into the tunnel. The trip through the tunnel was quick when we arrived at the door to the armory. I opened it up and led the four inside and we started crossing the armory when the girl I identified as the likely mage for the party stopped and stared at the group of armors. “I saw your enchanted knife but these armors are amazing.”

Alandra looked back at her with a stern look. “ Kindra you know better than to comment on a client's possessions” I shook my head to Alandra “no it’s fine I inherited all of these from my grandfather and don’t actually know what any of these enchanted items are or what they do.” Kindra looked excitedly at Alandra who thought for a moment before answering. “Yes you can if you explain it to him. But you can't charge him the full price.”

Kindra turned back to me “ I am an enchanter in training I can identify most enchantments but I haven’t passed my official Licensing yet so I can not give you an accredited identification but I can give you a likely answer for a cheaper price but it won’t be valid if you were to want to sell these later.” I shrugged “ that's fine I don’t need to sell them but I would like to know what they do how much?”

Kindra looked at the armor sets. “ For these more complicated ones on the armor normally would be ten gold per suit and the knives would be three or four gold coins. I can tell that each armor set is individual but the knives are all the same so lets say 18 gold?” it was a steep price but knowing my armors that I had would be worth it. “I don’t currently have the gold as you can accept me asking Isaac to have it come out of my gold due?” Alandra spoke up “ I can stand as witness to this agreement.”

With that decided we broke up. Kindra stayed to examine the equipment and the others followed me back outside up the stairs and outside to my car “ a mage carriage of some type made out of metal interesting.” Misha commented she said it more as a quiet comment then a question and Alandra chose not to comment on it.

The group began to gather the supplies and carry them back down stairs and out the hall. It took us around half an hour to off load the supplies. On our way back for the final load Kindra stopped me. “ I finished my assessment sir.” she said as I walked up. “Oh what did you find?” she looked over at the wall by the door. “First that necklace has a permanent version of the comprend language skill that the lieutenant cast on you.” I finally understood why the necklace was in the picture and quickly threw it on.

Next she pointed at the knife on my hip “all four knives have the same two enchantments which are very common one is a sharpness enchantment the other is a durability enchantment the two together will keep you from needing to sharpen the knife and makes it unlikely to break even when exposed to heavy stresses.” I nodded to show my understanding, happy to have my new dagger.

“The armor sets are where it gets interesting. Two sets are similar. The owners must have had a fear of falling, both of them have an odd combination of enchantments: one measures the distance to the ground the other one is something called feather fall.” she looked at me and I asked “ I have heard of something similar but what exactly does it do?” Kindra cleared her throat “ this one will over a distance dependent on speed slow you down to be moving the speed you would be falling if you just jumped on a level surface.”

This made me think grandpa never struck me as the kind to be afraid of heights, in fact he Jumped with the 173rd in Vietnam during Operation Junction City. I paused looking at the wall where the M60 hung and I thought about something. “Kindra what if I were to say run off a really really tall cliff wearing that?”

Kindra thought for a moment “ well if you were a mage you could use the built in feather fall spell to slow your descent all the way down if not you would need a mana stone.” She trailed off following something only she could see to the back of the armor and opened a flap showing a glowing blue crystal that had been hidden by the armor's design. “Exactly like this one you wouldn’t be able to control the fall, although with the way the two enchantments are tied into each other you would free fall to about 300 yards also looks like it increases the slow down speed for drops below that height.”

I did some quick math with the help of google meters and yards were pretty much interchangeable for rough calculations. A quick google search found terminal velocity for a human to be about 53 meters per second. Assuming a one gravity slow down at 9.8 meters per second that would allow a gentle touch down with a minimal amount of time just hanging in the sky I remember a term I had heard before.

“HALO” I mumbled to myself Kindra raised her eyebrow. “Never mind what about the other two?” Kindra shrugged and moved on “this one has a strength enchantment making it easier to lift heavy objects and to hit harder when swinging weapons. It also appears to have mage armor not used much anymore because bullets will shatter it but it might stop one and will still work well against blades.”

She turned to the final one touching it gently “this one is very special it is the only one with a more traditional style of enchantment it still has the option for using mana crystals but it has a built in invisibility spell able to work up to fifteen minutes an hour. Its other enchantment keeps the mana from leaking out and being visible to mages while in use.”

I thanked Kindra for the information before heading through the hallway emerging back into the twilight on the other side Isaac was waiting going over the gear. “ James, good to see you, these supplies are amazing and we could really use them” I looked over and tried not to laugh as I watched the Sergeant and two troopers very carefully studying the diagrams on how to set up the tents. Isaac looked a bit nervous so I asked him “ what's the matter” he sighed “we could use it all but I’m only authorized to offer fifty gold for supplies acquired in the field even that will have to be reviewed by my captain I won’t be a problem with the amount of supplies and refugees we are bring back but” he sighed “this stuff is worth closer to 200 all together.”

I thought for a moment this was already worth only about two gold to me so I wasn’t worried about the money too much but I figured I could at least make the most of it. I pointed to Kinda. “The Lady mage did me a favor for ten gold out of my bounty payout is there a way that I could sign some of the gear over to you personally enough to cover the money I owe her as it will be at least a forte night before I can come and collect and that way I can still receive the full bounty payment and fifty?”

Isaac gave me a funny look for calling Kindra a Lady but let it go. He spoke slowly as he let the idea filter through his mind. “Yes, none of that should violate regulations as this is your personal property, you are just selling some of it to me as an individual and the rest to the army that would work for me. Mage Kindra? Would you trust me to take on Mage James’s debt?”. Kindra nodded her assent “I have no doubt you will be good for the debt Lieutenant.” Isaac smiled “then it is agreed.”

I spent the rest of the evening showing them how all the supplies I bought were used and how to cook the meals. When the refugees were bedded down and the soldiers were on watch I bid good night to Isaac, Alandra, and Kira then Igni and I returned to the cabin.

The next morning Igni and I got up early and I made a pot of coffee then we headed down to check on the folks in the other world. We found the people eating breakfast and tearing down their camp. Isaac saw me and walked over to me and shook my hand. “Thank you again for everything James I don’t know what we would have done without you here is the final receipt with a full accounting of what your owed Kira was allowed to authorize medical expenditures separate from my limit but this receipt has both of our signatures your total owed is 80 gold 20 silver and 78 copper.” he handed me the receipt worth over 130,000 dollars. “ Thank you Isaac, you all have a safe trip.”

Igni and I watched as the group got ready and left with the soldiers walking spread out around the refugees as they reached the treeline and the adventures gave us one last wave before disappearing into the woods. I looked down at Igni “come on girl we have got to head home.” We walked back into the tunnel and I closed the hatch closing the wheel locks as I stepped back thought I caught an odd flicker of light.

but nothing else happened and I quickly returned to the safe area where I finally took the time to clean the two firearms I had used this weekend. After everything was put away I headed up stairs making sure everything was put away properly and I repacked my stuff and bagged up all the trash then I let Igni use the restroom one more time then we got in the car. We made it down to the main road as I pulled into the local gas station to fill up for the trip back over the mountains. I looked at the receipt one more time then made a decision. And called my boss's office number. “ Hey Brian it’s me I’m on my way back but a lot happened while I was gone this weekend and I’ve decided that I’m going to be quitting. I know this is sudden but please consider this my two weeks notice.”