The Morning After

My eyes slowly opened only to be blinded by the light. It was so bright, too much light coming from the windows. My head was stinging badly. It was hard to tell which pain was from the fall and which was from the hangover.

From the feeling underneath me, I was still on the floor. The hard, rough, wooden floor. I got up quite groggily, why did I get so into that last night? Nonetheless, I checked the bed. Azraea was still sleeping.

Her silver hair shone in the sunlight and she was so quiet whilst she slept. I wasn't going to wake her up, I had other priorities. Firstly I need to find a spot just to sit down. I looked about and realised that there were no chairs about, and Azraea would probably not like it if I went snooping around her house without her knowing. My only choice was to sit back down on the floor.

Some time passed before I heard stirring coming from Azraea, seemed like she was waking up. I saw her rise slowly, and start looking around. Eventually she locked her eye on me, but I wasn't so sure that she could see me properly. The drinks hit her harder than me.

"Ugh…" she groaned, "What...happened last night? My head hurts, like, really bad."

"You passed out at the bar." I told her, "I had to carry you back here, I assume this is your house?"

"Yeah…" Azraea replied, "How did you know this was my house?"

"You mumbled some directions in your sleep." I answered, "I just followed them here."

"Hold up…" Azraea interrupted. She looked over herself and noticed her own dishevelled dress. "Did you do anything to me whilst I was asleep?" she asked suspiciously.

"Nope." I replied, "I passed out on the floor soon after bringing you here, I had just as much to drink as you."

"Hmm…" Azraea eyed me for a while, "I'll trust you. You did bring me home after all."

Good thing that we cleared that up quickly, otherwise things might have turned bad.

"So…" I began, "What happens now?"

"Now, I have to show you about." Azraea answered, "Since you're a part of my party, you're going to be staying here a while. I'll show you about, maybe I'll even walk off this hangover."

With that, she led me out of the room and into a hallway. There were about five doors in this hall, excluding the front door. She took me by each door, starting with the one opposite her room.

"This is the kitchen." she told me, "I only have a limited supply of food so don't overdo it, you'll be finding me more if you do."

Then it was onto the third door, next to the kitchen.

"This is my lounge." Azraea said, "If I'm not in my room, you'll find me here. Try not to bother me unless it's something important."

Then the fourth door, opposite the lounge.

"This is a guest room." she announced, "You'll be sleeping in here. Keep in mind that you'll also be cleaning it if you mess it up. Other than that, feel free to decorate it however you want."

Finally, we reached the fifth door.

"This is the bathroom." Azraea told me, "I'm in here between eight and nine, so do not come in there at that time. I mean it. Tour's over."

Even with how bland it looks, this house has practically everything that anyone needs. It shouldn't be a problem living here. Azraea proceeded to walk off into the kitchen. I followed her in.

After looking about on a shelf for a few seconds, Azraea grabbed a small loaf of bread and started to eat it. It only took her three seconds to completely devour it. She licked her lips and grabbed another loaf, she then handed it to me.

"Eat." she said, "You'll need your strength to fight monsters. When you're finished, we'll go to the guild to look for quests to do. Make sure to pick up your sword too, you dropped it in my room."

"Got it…" I replied. She really took this seriously, did she really want to be an adventurer that badly?

It took me a minute to eat the loaf of bread in my hand. It was bland, but it'll do for energy. Then I walked back into Azraea's room and picked my sword up off the ground. Together, we left the house and went to the Guild.

It was quieter in the morning. There were less drunkards about and more adventurers looking for quests. There were also a few from last night who were passed out on the tables. Azraea simply ignored them and moved toward the quest board. There were some…great differences between the ranks.

If I was to look at something at my level, Bronze, I would find something along the lines of defending a village from a troll. If I looked at Azraea's rank, Gold, I would find requests to hunt a legendary beast of some sort. I didn't want to think about what Platinum adventurers could do, or even people of Hero rank.

"Hmm…" Azraea thought. She was hovering her hand over the board, waving over the different quests. "Found one."

Her hand snapped at the board and picked off a notice. She looked it over, I caught a glimpse of what it said. Couldn't read it though. Most likely taking this into account, Azraea started to read it aloud.

"Silver Quest." she read, "Clear out the goblin horde that has nested in the Sherpstal Mines. Reward is fifty gold along with whatever we find on the goblins. Sounds simple enough."

Azraea rolled up the notice and tucked it away in her pouch. Then we took off. She was right though, goblins are normally quite a weak enemy in games. If this world is following that logic like it has been, then this should be no different. Though I have to remember that they're smarter than A.I.

We left town and went out into the wilderness. I made sure to stick close to Azraea so I didn't get lost. She was focussed on following the path.

"So how do you think this will go?" I asked her, "It should be easy."

"Don't count on it." Azraea replied, "Goblins are supposed to be easy targets, with how the quest board works, they should be about copper level. If it's higher, then there must be something else there more dangerous than goblins alone."

All of a sudden, she stopped. I stopped as well and listened out. I could hear growling. It was like a dog growl more than anything. Wolves?

We stayed completely silent for about two minutes before the growling gradually got further away, and disappeared entirely. Azraea looked suspicious of something.

"Normal wolves would have pounced on us." she commented, "If those ones fell back then they might be tame. We'll need to watch out for goblin riders."

Together, we continued through the wilderness until we came to another stop outside of a cave mouth. I could smell blood and death coming from the mouth of the cave. Must be the goblin's hideout. I couldn't think of much else that would stink that much.

I could see the goblins outside the entrance. Small, ugly things that wore scraps of leather as armour. Two were mounted on top of wolves and the others had handmade spears. Those must have been the goblin riders that Azraea talked about. I would guess at them being more dangerous than the goblins on foot. But just what was inside?

"Hold up." Azraea whispered, "Let's go with a plan. I'll take the two riders from here. Meanwhile, you can take out the foot soldiers with your sword. Sound good?"

"Sounds good." I replied.

With that, I drew my sword and laid low. Azraea pulled out two streamlined knives from the back of her dress and placed them in between her fingers. Her eyes locked onto the goblin riders with utmost concentration, like a hunter stalking its prey. She held her hand just above her shoulder, ready to throw.

Then she fired both of them at once. The battle had begun.