Amica
Mage
Posts: 17
Profession: Mage for Hire
Affinity: Fire
Profile: Amica
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Post by Amica on Dec 10, 2017 18:30:31 GMT -6
Adwest, Ilia. After traveling the Ilian southwest, Amica was mostly traveling the countryside as a fortune-teller, usually travelling by day and working by night. Fortune-telling was a pretty cerebral job, and thus far she seemed content with scouring the countryside for clients that were willing to pay some gold for the privilege of having their future told or, sometimes, sleeping with her, albeit for different reasons depending on the client. If they were male mercenaries, or knights, both mounted or dismounted, sometimes the allure of women holding forbidden knowledge, or perhaps the intellect required to actually make sense of it, was just too great. Or, if they were not as refined, their beauty was a decisive factor. And yet, she was mostly a beginner in the whole domain of magic for hire. While she was staying in Ridget, another village in her schedule of routes, she was wondering exactly when she would get to leave, when she entered her usual stomping ground, the church, since Ridget did not have an inn. It was surprising, to say the least, that there was no inn in a village numbering a few hundred in population; usually inn-less villages were much smaller. However, even among those mountains, the settlements were still about 2-3 miles from each other, maybe 5 miles. The written job board was maintained by the village's priest, who was the one the village's residents knew was literate and could reliably read and write. She entered the church, amid the cold weather of Ilia's mountain regions, in search for the job board, and met the priest face-to-face:
"Welcome, young traveler. I am Father Kisca" the priest greeted Amica.
"Reverend Kisca, I am Amica, traveling fortune-teller. I may be wondering whether there are jobs out there that may require magic to complete"
"The job board. We don't get that many travelers, but nearly every traveler asks for what's on the board without fail. First, can you read?"
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Amica
Mage
Posts: 17
Profession: Mage for Hire
Affinity: Fire
Profile: Amica
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Post by Amica on Dec 11, 2017 7:17:50 GMT -6
The priest's question isn't innocuous: he might have seen one or two neophyte mages or neophyte fortune-tellers that claim to be mages that are actually illiterate, but literacy wasn't exactly a skill that was common among the common folk that might sign up for jobs on the board. But between prayer and religious services, the village's priest had a number of other duties. In effect, the priest ran the village's administration. Usually job boards of the nature Amica describes were to be found in mercenary guilds in larger towns, but in smaller villages, there simply wasn't enough people for more specialized structures. Especially not in Ilia, where mercenary work is often the way to go, so for any job Amica might sign up for, there were due to be others wanting to sign up for it, especially since some of those jobs were too dangerous for one person to take up alone.
"Oh yes"
"Now, have at it. I hope you can get along with other people, especially for the more dangerous jobs" the priest told Amica.
"I might be a mage for hire, of course, but I don't want to bite more than I can chew"
Biting more than they could chew was often, well, problematic for beginners in the mercenary trades and the priest knew it. For anyone that fought for a living, really, regardless of whether they were in an organized army or fighting as a freelancer. However, because she was unfamiliar with job posting formatting, she had few real clues as to how to gauge the threat level of jobs being posted. Bandits were common in regions like these, where pegasi patrols were scarce; they were also problematic especially if bandits could somehow get access to archers, in which case might be best not to employ aerial means of attack. But there was only one job being posted on the board at this time:
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The main road connecting southwest Ilia to northeast Etruria, the Parnus Way, has been plagued by bandits demanding gold and/or goods, sometimes even threatening to kill or kidnap those who do not or cannot comply with their demands. The bandits are threatening the livelihood and the public security of southwestern Ilia; to all those brave enough to face those bandits, you will receive salary according to how many bandits are killed, with bonuses if the bandit leaders are killed. Deliver the bodies of the bandits to the nearest toll castle.
Ministry of Public Works
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"Do you have any idea what salary does the Ministry of Public Works even pay?"
"They usually pay about 250 gold for each bandit killed, and double that for ranking members"
"I'm willing to join any local party willing to hunt for bandits"
Depending on who's available, how she imagined going around fighting those bandits may as well be different. Oh and she also imagined fighting such bandits to be. But the lengthy, but not necessarily hard, part was getting to the nearest toll station from there: it was well past her hometown of Adwest, and Adwest was just a stop along the Parnus Way.
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Amica
Mage
Posts: 17
Profession: Mage for Hire
Affinity: Fire
Profile: Amica
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Post by Amica on Dec 11, 2017 11:44:43 GMT -6
"Now, is there a rendezvous time and place for the local party scouring the countryside for those brigands?"
"In the church forecourt, at sunset"
Speaking of sunset, it was fast approaching, and, for this reason, Amica was the first to be present on-scene even though she was last to sign up for the expedition. The red-headed mage will likely turn some heads around, one or two perhaps, but she realized that it wasn't quite time for them to actually get to know each other, beyond each other's names, and then the plan to lure the brigands out of their hideout. Of course, given the rally point, the composition of the party will soon be made clear: one cavalier, one female myrmidon, one cleric in training from another village, one fighter, one archer and one mercenary. Including herself. The group of seven brave freedom fighters are not quite ready to prove their valor; they know that, even with such a varied group of combatants, they shouldn't go in blind. Once the seven members of the team are assembled, about to move into the countryside into the dead of night, and maybe even wilderness if necessary, they start introducing themselves, by the order in which they arrived.
"We all know why we are here: taking out the brigands that plague the Parnus Way, along the Ilia-Etruria border. I am Amica, a fortune-telling mage, and I expect this hunt for the brigands to last at most three days, so if we can get three days' worth of provisions, it will be well-appreciated"
"I am Jarck, and I will gladly carry our supplies from horseback"
"I am Reza, a lumberjack whose livelihood is threatened by the brigands blockading the Parnus Way, and I must say that I have more experience fighting wild animals than I do human foes"
"Same here; I am Nono, and I hunt wild animals for a living"
"I am Eliane, a simple farm girl..." the myrmidon followed up.
"I'm just here for the money; I am Dukal" the mercenary added.
"Finally, I am Paige, one of the nuns servicing this region. Shall we get started? Do you have any idea as to how you will go around luring those brigands out for us to fight?"
"Hiding into a lumber wagon?" Reza suggested.
"It will be a little tight for all of us to fit in a lumber wagon. While I might be a little lithe, not everybody here is" Eliane commented. "Hay costs far too much around here for us to squander it in an attempt to catch brigands"
"Have another idea in mind, Amica?" Jarck asked, in a very stern tone of voice.
"Provoking them into stealing cargo as cumbersome as lumber is not the best way to draw them out. Besides, in my fortune-telling business I often warn about those brigands being prone to attempt kidnapping women for ransom. Sure neither of us can fetch that much on the ransom market, but we're worth more to brigands than a cart filled with lumber. As they move in to kidnap us, we strike; it has a better chance of succeeding in the wilderness or at night"
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