Chapter 3: The Adventurer's Guild
Closing the door quickly behind him, Cyrus breathed an immediate sigh of relief, not even bothering to look around at the contents of the town's adventurer's guild. One of the shop's he'd passed on the way here had been staring at him! A large eye, over the entrance of the store, had followed him with its disconcertingly singular gaze from just past the inn all the way to the door of the adventurer's guild. It had given Cyrus the creeps, and he wasn't looking forward to going back out there with it.
It was undoubtedly the town's magic shop. That creepy eye was probably the owner's sick idea of a joke. Mages were weird people, after all.
Turning his head to the guild's interior, the first thing Cyrus noticed about it was that the single room was not particularly well lit. A fire burned in the hearth at the far end of the room, and in front of it was a large padded chair from which a good deal of loud snoring was emanating in uneven fits. Aside from the sunlight diffusing into the room, there was no other light source.
"Note to self," he said quietly, "do not get caught here at night."
The heads of what had once been monsters lined the north wall of the room, trophies of the local adventurers. He could make out several: the dragon was obvious, as were the gryphon, troll, and saurus. Three of them, however, were mysteries: a hirsute black head, shaped strikingly like that of a man but with pronounced feline features; a brown-furred, big head with a large, elongated round snout and antlers—it certainly didn't look very dangerous; and something he'd NEVER seen before. It was blue, shaped rather like a large teardrop (gum drop?), and had two sets of red eyes.
The names beneath them read Cheetaur, Moose, and Antwerp, respectively.
Cyrus sighed. "Where in good Glorianna have I come to?" he wondered.
The only other noteworthy feature of the guild was a rickety old desk, not far from the entrance. Momentarily resisting the urge to open the drawers and start searching for valuables, Cyrus noticed the large, open book sitting atop it. Looking at its pages, he noted the last entry. It said, Baronet Barnard von Spielburg killed a troll near the Flying Falls this 23rd day of Octember. Looking back up, Cyrus wondered what a place would have to look like or be to earn that kind of name.
Flying falls, he thought. Maybe it's near a cliff. Too many people tried to teach themselves to fly, and fell.
He stifled a laugh at his own bad joke, and took the pen and added his name to the register, convinced that flying was something that neither nor any other man would ever experience.
Knowing full well he wouldn't like what he had to do next, he slinked quietly to the chair near the fireplace, the source of all the snoring. Looking around the side he saw an old man with iron gray hair and a long beard sawing logs contentedly in it. This must have been Wolfgang, the guildmaster. He wore provincial Spielburg dress, and a long, rusty sword lay in his lap, as did a flask of liquid and a washcloth. He looked every bit the part of the adventurer has-been.
As opposed to an adventure wannabe, he thought. Well, technically, I'm not even that. I'm an adventurer don't-wannabe.
No, technically you're a thief.
The last thought came unbidden, from another part of his subconscious, and Cyrus was stunned—and a bit stung—by its sudden intensity, and… what? Vitriol?
Shaking his head, he straightened up and let out a polite, "Ahem."
The guildmaster continued to snore loudly.
Moving in front of the man, directly between him and the fireplace, he grunted a louder and more insistent, "Ahem. Excuse me, sir, are you…?"
The snoring grew even louder, as if to spite him.
"HEY!" Cyrus yelled, fed up.
The old man woke with a started, coughing tiredly, snapping into a sitting-up position, and glancing about wildly, sword hilt in one hand and flask in the other. Finally noticing the stranger in front of him, he craned his neck forward and squinted, as if uncertain he was really there. Finally, he spoke, in a deep voice that carried the weight of many years and burdens in it.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I was so busy, I didn't notice you come in. Welcome to the Spielburg Hero's Guild. We don't see many adventurers lately, most people think this valley is cursed. I'm Wolfgang Abenteur, the guildmaster."
Cyrus nodded, in an attempt to humor the old man. No point in appearing rude when you needed information.
"I'm Cyrus," he replied, nodding his head. "I'm responding to the ad for a hero of Spielburg. Sheriff Meistersson told me you might know a thing or two about this place."
"Well, I'd better! I've been master of this guild for twenty-five years!"
"Not the guild," Cyrus said, hoping he successfully bit back the impatience he was feeling. "The town. The valley. What can you tell me about the curse?"
"Oh, that. Yah, I know lots about those things."
The next hour was both fascinating and difficult for Cyrus. Fascinating because Wolfgang Abenteur did indeed have plenty to say, most of which was even interesting. He had once been an adventurer, along with Baron von Spielburg himself, with whom he'd fought off a dragon. He knew much about the valley's layout, the monsters, and the more noteworthy places to go (Flying Falls, as it turned out, was very close to town, and derived its name from entirely different origins to Cyrus's flippant earlier supposition).
He even knew about Spielburg castle and the baron's children, as well as how he soon lost them after his failed attempt to drive Baba Yaga out of Spielburg. The curse, he said, was that the baron would lose all he held dear for attempting to displace the ogress, and that only under a very specific set of circumstances would it be lifted. He knew the ogress lived to the northwest somewhere, and that she could only be defeated by powerful magic. All in all, Wolfgang must have been quite the hero in his youth, and Cyrus found his tales fascinating.
What was difficult was the man's narcolepsy.
No less than ten times did Wolfgang nod off to sleep in the middle of a sentence, only to snap awake moments later to re-introduce himself to the young adventurer. Cyrus would then have to spend another few moments getting the old man to remember where he'd left off, and eventually continue with his stories about the area and the people and things in it.
By the time he'd gleaned all the information he thought would be of use from the old man, he was happy to leave Rip Van Wolfgang to his peaceful slumber.
"Next stop, the magic shop," he breathed, not happy about it. It's owner, Zarra, was currently his only hope of defeating this ogress witch. Hopefully he'd provide Cyrus with some means of battling her. He didn't like the idea of going into that creepy shop, but he knew he had no choice.
Because unfortunately, sometimes the only way to beat a magic user was to get help… from another magic user.