Chereads / The ghost dungeon master / Chapter 39 - Clifford's party (Quest complications & Tilrok's blacksmith)

Chapter 39 - Clifford's party (Quest complications & Tilrok's blacksmith)

"Hi guys, we are done with the debriefing from the guild master, now we are dropping off the proof of our killings at the quest completion counter."

"Hey beautiful, here's our kill proof during the quest." Clifford begin taking out the goblin ears, wolf fangs, bladed ears, etc from his bag and placing them on the table in front of the counter lady.

"Erm, hold on a second, why is there bladed ears of the bladed ear rabbit and isn't this dark forest wolf fangs? Where did you guys go? The route to that new dungeon shouldn't have this type of monsters." The counter lady became skeptical by the killing proofs that Clifford's party had provided.

As though he had something stuck in his mouth, Clifford was staring at the wall while trying to recall what happen.

Seeing Clifford being speechless, Zayne begin explaining to the counter lady their trip of going and coming back from the dungeon, "We followed the quest instructions and it took us about 1/2 day to reach the dungeon without much problems on the way there. We stayed there for a night and had left the dungeon around mid-day. We encountered some of these monsters on the way back causing us to decide to stay overnight as a precaution. However, we encounter the goblins lurking outside of town."

"Alright, give me a moment." After speaking the counter lady headed into the door behind her.

Moments later she brought back another lady, "Hi, I am Alice, the overall in charge of the quests and rewards system in this guild. I heard from my colleague here that you guys have encounter a weird situation while you guys doing a quest. I would need you guys to give me further details of it."

"Okay, for the dark wolves we encountered them the moment we left the dungeon on the way back. Due to the wolves, we didn't dare to advance through the night and decided to camp out in the forest. During the next morning, while we were pushing through the forest, we encounter the bladed ear rabbits and there were more of it than the usual creatures in the area, we had no choice but take our time to clear a path back, as they are fast and dangerous. When we were about to reach the town, we encounter a group of goblins setting up camp nearby, it was pretty late already, but we dispatched them before returning to the town last night." Zayne begin explaining to Alice.

"I see, we might need you guys to stick around town for these few days, as you guys are the only ones who reported about the goblins, a few other parties have reported an increase in monster activities though." Alice said to Zayne.

"But we can't really stay, Mr Tilrok have tasked us to bring him to the dungeon and the guild master had already approved the quest. Here's the quest request slip." Zayne took out a paper from his bag and showed it to Alice.

"If that's the case, I'll request a defer for the quest from the guild master, as it might be dangerous to leave the town at this moment of time. From all the reports it seems like a monster stampede might occur. You guys please come back tomorrow to confirm the deferment of the quest." Alice replied and headed back into the door at the back.

"So sorry for her insistence, I heard from a close colleague of hers that she once experience a monster stampede before, quite a lot of adventurers died from not listening." The counter lady begin explaining why Alice was like that.

"No worries, could you help us turn in these items, Thanks!" Zayne replied the counter lady.

"Sure thing, give me a moment, I will bring this to the back to get someone to check these and come back with your rewards." After speaking the counter lady head to the back room.

Moments later, she came out with 2 gold and 40 big silver coins.

"Here's your reward. Please check."

"Seems okay. Thanks." Zayne replied, after they took the money, they combined it with the previous reward from Dronik and begin splitting up among the party, leave a few gold for preparations of the next quest.

"Hmm, I'll split it so each of us get 10gold, and the rest I will passed it to Ru, since she got a new weapons and doesn't need repairs, she can safe keep and go buy the supplies for the next quest." Zayne said.

"Alright, by the way, how long do you guys want to stay in that dungeon this time around?" Ru asked the rest of the members.

"I say we prepare for like 10 days, who knows how long that dwarven blacksmith wanted to stay there?" Rebecca added in her piece of mind.

"Hmmm, yeah we better prepare for more days, alright we should disband over here, I'll be heading over to repair my equipments, anyone else will be following?" Clifford couldn't wait and begin speaking.

"I'll join you, my shield is pretty battered from the last fight." Zayne replied.

"I'll follow Ru." Rebbeca said.

"Alright see you guys back at the inn."Clifford immediately took off without waiting for the rest to say anything. Seeing him bolt off, Zayne bow to the two girls before following behind Clifford.

~~~~~~

"Hi guys, finally that noisy girl is no longer around, alright now we are heading over to Mr Tilrok's blacksmith to get our equipment repaired." Clifford looks to the side while walking down the street, it was already late afternoon though the sun was still shining on the road.

"Guys, we are here!" Clifford stood in front of a three storey building with huge chimney with a ton of black smoke coming out of it constantly.

Clifford walked into the blacksmith's shop front, a young man was sitting at the counter shaking his leg while resting his head on his hand with the elbow placed on the table. There were tons of weapons and armor on the armor stands and weapon racks. Right behind the young man was four weapons, a sword, a spear, a double side axe and a kite shield, all of the weapons had a name below them.

"Guys that fella over there is, Bart, he is old man Tilrok's apprentice cum assistant, though at the moment, the old dwarf doesn't let him take any custom weapon creation job only repairs. By the way, those weapons behind him are all of Old man Tilrok's prized creation, so far only one of his prized weapon was sold. He likes to say the weapon chooses the owner, he had even turned down a few nobles who tried to buy them." Clifford look towards the side and said before heading towards Bart.

"Hey Bart!" Clifford greeted him.

"Hey, what you need today?" Bart looks at him with a pair of dead eyes.

"Here, I need these equipment repair as soon as possible please." Clifford took out his helmet, sword, armor and placed them on the table, before remembering about his party member, "Oh, Zayne is needing repairs as well, he's on the way over."

"Bro, there is a long list of repairs awaiting, can you believe, it's been so busy and the old man rushed out all of a sudden and when he came back he just locked himself up in the main furnace room the moment he came back just now." Bart was complaining to Clifford about his master's shenanigans.

"You had a tough time as well, but can you repair our equipment first, your master wanted us to escort him to somewhere." Clifford asked politely as Zayne walked into the blacksmith.

"Huh, so it was because of you guys? So where are you taking him to this time around?" Bart he rolls his eyes at Clifford as he question.

"Bro, we can't tell you, the guild master sealed our mouth."Clifford replied.

"Come on, out with it, I'll keep it a secret." Bart said as he looks into Clifford's eyes in anticipation.

"Bart, we can't tell you, else we going to get killed." Zayne suddenly spoke up, before Clifford could reply.

"Tch.... Alright, how long will you guys be bringing him out, this time? The last time you guys brought him out to mine in the mountains, it was an entire 7 days, freaking 7 days. Did you know, I almost died from overworking." Bart begin complaining at Zayne.

"Bart, you aren't the only one who suffered. I am not sure how long we will go for, since your master is the one who likes to extend the trips. We will be preparing for 10 days in case, the other time we prepared for 6 days and we almost starved while coming back to town." Zayne's eyes turned dark as he said to Bart.

"Arghhh... I just remembered that scary incident, that Rebecca took my hand as food and bite on it while she was half asleep." Clifford shivered a little as he recalled what happened and looked towards the side and whispered, "By the way, we managed to catch some rabbits and frogs to eat them as sustenance else we would have really died on the way back, but the girls didn't want to eat the frogs no matter what."

"You guys have it tough as well." Bart came over the counter and patted both of them on the back.

"Alright, I'll handle you guys equipments first, you two should be able to collect them by tomorrow evening." Bart said as he smiled, took the equipments and placed them in a basket adding a tag on it.

"Thanks," both of them replied in sync.

"Oh and try not to spend all your gold, the repairs for these item should be around 50 big silver to 1 gold." Bart looked towards the both of them and said before heading into one of the side room.

After Bart left the room, Zayne looked over to Clifford and said, "Wanna go find some ladies for the night? I heard there is a new place that just opened it's just around the corner."

"Sure, I need to destress a little as well."Clifford replied Zayne with glee in his eyes.

When the both of them walked out of the blacksmith it was already getting a little dark outside. So the both of them headed over to the corner towards a place called Joe's Cabaret. The street that Joe's Cabaret was located was one of the busiest streets at night, with pop up stalls that sells food and small accessories. After walking for awhile, they both arrived at a huge building which had bouncers in the front and a lobby area.

Zayne walked up to the bouncer and flashed a card, upon seeing the card the bouncer moved to the side and let the both of them in.

"Zayne, you been here before?" Clifford asked when he saw what happened.

"Shhh, don't tell the girls." Zayne looked over to Clifford and said.

"Okay, your secret is safe with me." Clifford winked at Zayne, before looking at the side and said, "Alright guys, that's all for today. I'll see you guys tomorrow!"

"Let's PARTY!" Clifford shouted out as the door opens and the blasting noise of music could be heard coming out from inside of the doors. The both of them headed in and the door closed behind them and silence fell again as though nothing had happened.