Blood Shaper

Kay trooped into the Adventurer’s Guild, covered in blood and with seven heads in a sack, one of them a wolf’s. A few of the other adventurers glanced over and took in the sight of him, but they quickly lost interest. People covered in blood with oddly bulging bags wasn’t an uncommon sight here.

He’d originally planned to go back to Eleniah’s house and clean himself off before turning in the job, but with the looks people had given him in the street, he decided to just clean up afterward.

He stood in line, thankful that the sack Eleniah had recommended to him was very good at retaining fluids. He could always magic the blood off of himself, but showing up completely clean after the fight he’d just had seemed like it could be suspicious. That, and not every fluid the heads were leaking was blood.

When it was his turn at the counter, he stepped forward and handed the employee his identification card. The small magical plate had his name and rank as an Adventurer’s Guild adventurer, which limited the kinds of jobs he could take until he got to higher ranks, and his highest tier recorded on it. It also was enchanted so that guild employees could see what job, or jobs at higher rank, an adventurer was signed onto.

“Let’s see… you were investigating and potentially killing the culprit of a reported monster attack on a Nelamian noble’s carriage?”

Kay held up the cloth sack. “It was bandits.”

“Can you prove that these bandits were the attackers?” The guild employee asked as he started writing things down.

Kay set down the sack and pulled out another, slightly smaller, sack of the same material. He set it on the desk and opened it up to reveal a pile of coins, jewelry, and other valuable looking items. He pulled out a ring with a crest on it. “Signet ring of the noble. Got it from their camp. I also heard them discussing the attack before they caught me and I had to fight.”

The employee nodded and waved over another person. “Could you get me one of the verification department, please?”

The other employee nodded and ran off.

Turning back to Kay, the man gestured at the bag. “And the remainder?”

“Their heads.” Kay hoisted the sack a little higher but kept it off the desk. “Six bandits and a tamed wolf of some kind. Big, but probably not a monster.”

The man’s eyebrows rose to the top of his head. “You fought six bandits and a wolf by yourself?”

Kay chuckled humorlessly. “I got so lucky. I was trying to sneak away after finding their camp when one of them spotted me while doing some business.” The employee winced a little. “Right? Terrible luck there, but I managed to take him out. The wolf caught up to me first, but I got it in the belly when it tried to jump on me. The next two came at the same time and just got in each others way. Then the other three caught up while I was running, and two of them pinned me down with bows while the last one charged me. Then she tripped and knocked herself unconscious.”

The surprise on the employees face made Kay laugh for real. “Seriously?”

“Completely serious, totally saved my ass. The two with bows were so surprised I managed to get to them before they could react. Took out one before he could switch weapons, and the other one went to a sword but he wasn’t great at it and I managed to kill him.”

“Damn you were lucky.”

“Yeah I was, if they’d managed to come at me all at the same time, or if any of them had been more competent, they’d have killed me dead. I’m just glad none of them were tier threes.”

“You Inspected them?”

“Never had a chance, they were too far away when I was watching them and I didn’t want to chance getting closer, then during the fight I didn’t want to get distracted.” At the low level Kay had it at, Inspect had a range of about ten feet. Once he got it to level three it’d jump to about twenty, but he hadn’t had the time to do so yet. Practicing it on random people was considered really rude.

“Smart.” The employee turned around as a woman in the same uniform, but with light blue trim walked up. “Hey, need you to confirm that the bandits that were defeated were the target of this job.”

“No problem.” She turned and looked at Kay expectantly.

“I followed a trail from the site of the attack to their camp, and listened to them discuss attacking the noble, and disguising the attack as done by a monster. I also found the noble’s signet ring with the rest of their loot. I am certain that these bandits were the target of this quest.” Kay told her.

“Truth.” She smiled at Kay and turned to the other employee. “I confirm the adventurer is telling the truth.” Without cameras or other ways to record things, not without magic most people didn’t have, people with truth telling skills were the best way to verify things like the changing circumstances of jobs.

“Thanks.” The first employee turned back to Kay as the other one left. “I’ll take the heads and the loot, we’ll verify if any of them have bounties and check over the valuables you recovered. Here’s your slip for the completed job,” he handed over a small piece of paper, “And your chit for the loot and possible bounties. It shouldn’t take that long, so just hang around for a bit.” He pointed to a door near the tavern area, “There’s a place to wash off the blood over there.”

Kay had used the cleaning room before, but he thanked the employee and went to stand in another line. There he turned in the slip and got his reward for the job itself, a nice hundred gold. For seven bandits that was a really large sum. For a singular monster that was a massive payment, for seven bandits it was still pretty good. Kay had been lucky to get the job right after it had peen posted.

Plus, taking out bandits had it’s own rewards. Besides ridding the world of an evil group that preyed on people, anything that an adventurer got when killing bandits was theirs to keep. The Adventurer’s Guild checked over the loot for specific items that there were jobs to recover, and Kay was sure that he wouldn’t get to keep the signet ring, but if there were any recovery jobs out for those items he’d count as having completed those too, and The Guild would recompense him for losing the item.

Eventually after he’d had a nice lunch, the small token started faintly glowing. He went over to the correct counter and turned it over to the employee there.

“Thank you!” She chirped, the woman looking quite chipper. “There were no specific bounties on these bandits, so you’re receiving the standard fifty silver per head, and another twenty five for the tamed beast. The signet ring of the noble was taken to be returned to the family as well as another piece of jewelry they asked to be recovered if possible. So you’ll be getting one hundred gold for each of the items themselves, plus a fifty gold recovery fee for each.” She held out a large purse. “That comes to three hundred, three gold and twenty five silver.” Kay slowly took the purse, a slightly shocked look on his face. That was the single most money he’d received for a job at once. That was the kind of money you got for hunting tier four monsters, not a group of tier two bandits!

“Holy shit.”

“Yes, the client was quite generous. Also, both the signet ring and the bracelet they asked for back had small enchantments, so you get a good amount for those.” She lifted up Kay’s two sacks and handed them back to him. “Also, here’s the rest of your recovered loot, and your bags.”

“Thanks.”

“Thank you! The Adventurer’s Guild is happy to have talented adventurer’s working with us!”

Kay waved as he smiled at what was probably a stock line and walked away. He shook himself of his disbelief at his sudden fortune and started walking for the door. Eleniah would want to know that he’d made it back, and then yell at him for how close he’d been to disaster.

The doors of the guild slammed open and three people ran in carry a fourth. “Healer!” One of them shouted desperately.

A man threw himself off of a chair near the door and sprinted at the group. His hands began to glow as he slammed them into the injured adventurer and started shouting orders. “Set him down! Get his armor off!”

The guild employees jumped into action, blocking off a section of the floor to keep the crowd of adventurers from watching, Kay one of them as the healer kept pumping magic into the adventurer.

“Where’s Chief Ambergrass?”

“There was a Orange Tongue outbreak in the slums, she went to fight it!”

“Damn! This wound is deep! Someone get me one of each blood potion!” The healer shouted.

Kay watched as an employee ran off and came back with one red-orange potion in a bottle.

“I need one of each!” The healer shouted.

“We’re out! The alchemists are making more, but…”

“Dammit! He’ll bleed out before it starts to close the wound!” The healer shouted, even as the other employee fed the adventurer the potion.

Kay watched as the adventurer’s party cried, watching their friend and comrade bleed out in front of them.

Without a conscious thought, Kay dove under the arms of a guild employee and sprinted towards the healer and his patient. He ripped the bandage off his arm and started drawing his own blood and, forcing it through the wound and into the other man’s body.

“What the hell are you doing?” The healer shouted, his face incredulous.

Kay ignored him and focused on giving the adventurer his blood. With the other part of his focus he grabbed at the blood spewing our of the adventurer and focused on reversing the flow. Blood inside a living creature was out of his reach, and as each moment passed he grabbed the blood that flowed into his domain and forced it back into where it belonged.

“Wait!” He faintly heard a voice yell. “He’s helping!”

Kay ignored everything outside of the flow of blood, sending his own into the adventurer, and keeping the adventurer’s own blood back inside him.

Time passed, but Kay didn’t notice as his entire focus continued to stay on keeping the bleeding man alive. He was so focused, in fact, that he couldn’t react when a strong hand grabbed him by the collar and tossed him back. He rolled across the floor a few feet, before he stopped and tried to sit up.

A tanned arm slammed his chest back down, and he looked up to see Eleniah holding him down and re-bandaging his arm.

“Eleniah, what.”

“He’s fine!” Eleniah growled at him. “The healer said to stop you, now hold still!”

She wrapped his arm up tight as he lay there, until his entire arm was bandaged up. She looked down at him after she finished. “You alright?”

“Little woozy, but about the same as when I normally donate blood.”

“What? Donate blood?”

“Uh, Outworlder thing from home.”

“Oh, you can explain later, then.” She pulled him upright and slung one of his arms over her shoulders.

Looking around, they saw a group of adventurers around them, staring at Kay warily.

“What?” Eleniah demanded.

“That was blood magic.” One of them said, and the crowd rustled.

“He’s not a blood mage!” A familiar voice called out, and Vice-Guildmaster Jaira pushed through the crowd. “The Guild can confirm that he is not a blood mage. Now all of you push off!”

The crowd visibly calmed at her declaration and they started spreading out, headed back to whatever they had been doing before.

“Thank you for helping.” Jaira said, looking Kay dead in the eyes. “The Guild hates to lose adventurers when we don’t have to.”

“No problem.” Kay croaked, his mouth suddenly dry.

“Any reason to keep us around, or can we head out?” Eleniah asked.

“I don’t see any reason to keep-”

“Don’t let them leave!” The healer shouted, pointing at Kay. “The Chief is going to want to ask about that skill!”

Jaira glanced at the healer, then back to the two of them. “Do you mind hanging around until she gets back? He’s probably right that she’ll want to ask you about it, and I’d rather not deal with her badgering me about letting you two walk out, even if she can just find you later.”

Kay glanced at Eleniah, who looked annoyed, but whispered, “Having the Chief Healer of an Adventurer’s Guild branch owe you a favor isn’t a small thing.”

Kay looked over at the vice-guildmaster. “Can I have some water while we wait? And maybe some food?”

Jaira snorted a laugh. “The Guild will be more than happy to feed you and bring you some drinks while you wait.”

“Awesome.”

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