Music wafted amid shining candlelight and rowdy voices. The smell of ale and roasted meat filled the air. Under the guild halls rafters and iron banded chandeliers Adventurers were Laughing, rabble rousing, dancing, arguing, and even fighting.
Amongst this throng of merriment, one would never guess the world was threatened by legions of undead.
A girl with dark gray hair and feline-like ears, stood before the guild quest board, her equally feline tail swaying slowly from side to side as she read through the postings.
"Find my missing pet." "Kite stuck in a tree." "Find my missing tools." She hmm'd whipping her tail. There weren't any decent jobs for adventurers of her rank.
Thanks to the undead, monsters had become scarce, and jobs like gathering requests now had a higher risk, requiring a greater reward, meaning less people could afford to issue them; and the better quests were reserved for the higher ranked adventurers, or those with a party. She had neither party nor rank, so getting solid work was difficult at the moment.
A few months prior when the city was under siege by an army of the undead, the local garrison was issuing requests with obvious urgency and the pay had been extremely good.
Eventually the siege was repelled and the war front was pushed south, well away from the city.However, besides job opportunities, sieges also created shortages, which drove up prices. So the money she made didn't last long, and had quickly run out, leaving her with little to eat besides hardtack and stale bread.
She continued reading through the postings. "Warehouse cleaning." "Help with magical experimentation." She knew the poster for that one. A really nice mage girl who'd been traveling to further her studies in magic.
Unfortunately, as she lacked the requisite magical abilities to be of any assistance, that one wouldn't be an option. She went to continue, only to freeze, going as brittle as stone upon seeing a request on blue parchment.
A request issued directly from the capital. Though It wasn't the origin of the request but the request itself that startled her, In bold it read.
"WANTED: INFORMATION ON THE REAPER CLASS UNDEAD AZURE EYES."
She swallowed hard, her ears folding down. That's not something that should've ever been on the low ranks board. After all Just the thought of that creature would make even the strongest of warriors nervous. The Azure Eyes, the terror of adventurers, bane of heroes.
A monster who'd earned the highest classification of Reaper, which is said to be capable of wiping out entire cities and parties of high ranked adventurers. It was the very same designation that was given to dragons, and the Azure Eyes certainly deserved it.
In the past forty-years countless lives had been taken by it. Famous adventurers, heroes, knights of great renown, all had challenged it and died horribly. Rarely did anyone ever return alive from facing it, but if they did they never ever came back in one piece. Limbs, sanity or having been mauled to the point of being unrecognizable, something was always lost in that confrontation.
It's not uncommon for those who had survived to commit suicide not long after; people have even argued whether surviving it was worse than dying to it.
Although, thanks to those unfortunate survivors, we know at least its capabilities and appearance. A white haired undead, wielding a curved red sword and possessing an extremely high level of swordsmanship.
Along with the trait from which its moniker is derived, a pair of glowing blue eyes that are said to instill absolute terror in those who look into them.
However it's said, as opposed to its combat ability, its true terror lied in its intelligence, that unlike other undead it had sentience being able to strategize, lay ambushes, and avoid situations which would be disadvantageous to itself.
There'd been named undead who could fight well before, but none held even a scrap of the Azure Eyes level of discernment. It was truly the apex not just in this era of strife, but in recent history as a whole.
Now that the war against the undead was shifting, killing the Azure Eyes would be essential. It had interfered in the march of both sides' armies before, causing this conflict to be prolonged for far longer than it should have.
The guild was certainly desperate to see it properly dead if a request like this had also been posted to the low ranks board.
The girl exhaled, even if it was just scouting. It's not a job any sane person would take, but for curiosity's sake she wanted to see the reward on it. "Two gold, five silver and thirty bronze! That's the kind of rewards gold ranked quests get you!" She thought her ears twitching excitedly.
"With that kind of money I could get that new gear I'd been eyeing and eat like a noble for a few months easy!" Her excitement waned, realizing she'd momentarily forgotten how insane taking such a quest would be.
"Well… that's if I survived or could even find the Azure Eyes…" Rationality was beaten by greed and hunger like a red headed step child in a belt factory.
"Hey guild girl I'd like to take this job please!" This girl daring as she was, couldn't have realized this wasn't an earnest request. That those who took this quest weren't meant to be scouts, but bait.