Re: Newcomers to Oak Glen

[Nara-pyon]

A sound, almost like a growl, was audible in Zoltan's throat - but just barely. He folded his hands over his chest and looked up at Reed, his upper lip curling slightly.

"I doon't know aboot this," he growled quietly. "That girl needs watchin'."

Babysitting might be a better word for it.

Aeris laughed. "Oh, don't worry about me," she beamed at Zoltan. "You're such a worrier. I'll be fine, I'm sure that if I end up sharing a room, it'll be someone very trustworthy! I'm sure they don't let scoundrels in here!"

She smiled widely at Risa. "Right?"

[Kara Winters]

Risa smiled, once more, like she was use to strange questions all the time.

"I assure you that your roommate is safe," Risa replied assuredly.

But she made a mental note to add to the file folder to only put Aeris with adventurers that Risa knew very well in the future.

Reed shrugged, "She's going to have to learn eventually."

Even though he was kind of cringing at the moment.

[Nara-pyon]

"Hrm." Zoltan growled again. "Well ... if she's aloon fer now ..."

"Oh, come, come, I'll be just fine," Aeris laughed, waving one hand dismissively.

Zoltan stepped closer to the young dragonborn and pointed a finger in her face - or at least in the direction of her face. It was a bit of a spectacle to see a four and a half foot dwarf wagging a figure authoritatively at a six foot three dragonborn.

"As soon as ye have a roommate, lass," he said, his tone almost sounding threatening, "you either give yer purse te me or Reed, or ye lock it up somewhere."

She smiled sweetly and patted the battle-hardened dwarf on the head in a manner that was probably rather patronizing. "Such a worry-wart," she giggled. And before he could respond, she stepped around him, towards Risa, so that they could be shown to their rooms.

[Kara Winters]

"Uhm... does this mean you want me to change your key now? Because that key is already shared by another person," Risa pointed to the key in Aeris' hand, "I can do that right now if you'd like."

It was no trouble to her to give Aeris the room beside the paladin., she just didn't want the woman to be in for a nasty surprise.

"Maybe you should?" Reed suggested to Aeris.

[Nara-pyon]

Aeris didn't see that it was a big deal, but she shrugged and smiled easily, holding her hand out to Risa and opening it to offer the key back.

"If you insist," she said simply.

[Kara Winters]

Risa made a mental sigh of relief because the dwarf reminded her too much of her father and decided finding out that the paladin was going to be his friend's roommate would have not ended well. So she took the key and got the one next to the room instead. Once she handed the key off to Aeris, she showed the group to their rooms.

Each room had two beds, the beds themselves were of sturdy make and the sheets were soft and comfortable. There was a window between the two beds and a night stand for each bed. At either side of the room there was also two desks and a chair for people to write at if they wished. Besides the curtains to keep out the light and the rug on the floor there wasn't much in the way of decoration.

"I hope these will do," Risa told them honestly, "The training yards are through the door near the counter and if you need anything or have any questions just ask."

[Nara-pyon]

Zoltan was more than satisfied with the room, and without hesitation he stepped into it, tossed his bag on the floor underneath the bed to the left, and climbed up onto the bed. He kicked off his boots, laid down, put his hands behind his head, and closed his eyes.

"Fine fer me," he told Risa with his eyes closed. To the others, he added, "I'm goin' te sleep. Wake me when ye've finished yer bizness at the other guilds an' ye're ready to eat or look fer work."

Aeris was happy with her room, too, and she did nothing more than look at it and smile her approval before she turned, already prepared to leave again. "Thank you, Risa. It will do nicely."

As she had left nothing in there, she saw no reason to close the door behind herself, let alone lock it, before leaving again. So she simply turned to Reed and asked, "So? Are you ready to check out the Mage Guild now?"

That was where she was the most excited to go. Learning more magic was, after all, her entire purpose in leaving home.

[Kara Winters]

Reed scratched the back of his head thoughtfully. While Zoltan was a really nice fellow, he always felt the man was a bit to... to the point.

"Yes, let's go."

The Mage Guild, was one of those guilds that weren't in every town or city. To have a Mage Guild meant that the location it was stationed was very prosperous. This was because in the grand scheme of things, being a mage was not a class that people could just pick up. They had to have talent, or divine intervention, or in the really rare case a pact with an otherworldly being. Coupled with the fact that learning more difficult spells was not common, the price for magic was very high. This made the Mage Guilds one of the richest guilds next to the Merchant Guild. Mages who registered with a specific Mage Guild gained access the workrooms, were the only people who could ask for access to the guild library and could potentially ask for information on a spell or ritual though the latter cost coin. The community in turn could ask for the services of a mage, for a particular type of service. This service beyond basic zero level spells became pricey, so often the clients were adventurers, merchants or other people of wealth.

The guild building was just as large as the Adventurer Guild, however it looked more like a manor like the bathhouse had. Lovely flowers were planted outside of the building and it had some climbing ivy on a trellis that gave it charm. The sign over the door was embossed with gold. Inside the building, even the layout was the same as the Adventurer's Guild, but just the layout. The wealth and the type of client the guild had showed. The guild used darker wood to emphasis the crimson red rug on the floor, the red fabric that cushioned the couches (that were used instead of chairs) and the red covering on the counter. The tables were all of that same dark red and the room was lit by mage lights. Like before there were a few people in the lobby going about their business. This included an aged woman in wizard robes reading from a book, and a five year old child who was playing at her own personal low table with her dolls complete with red cushions for her to sit on.

The person who was manning the counter was a dragonborn with white dragon ancestry like Aeris. Only he was clearly older than she was. He stood out with his gleaming white scales and it's deep blue robes among all the dark wood and red cloth.

[Nara-pyon]

If Aeris' wonder at the Adventurer's Guild had been immense, she was so entranced by the beauty of the Mage Guild that almost as soon as she and Reed entered the building, she was lost in her admiration. She spun in a very slow circle, her eyes wide with awe. A mere three steps inside, she stopped moving forward entirely, she was so distracted by the decor.

She didn't even notice that the man behind the counter was very similar to her.

[Kara Winters]

"I knew that fancy clients came to this guild, but they must be really fancy," Reed whistled as he looked around.

Of course, he knew spells were expensive, even more expensive outside the country. The country always had an unusual amount of mages, but the founder of the country had been a sorcerer so it went without saying.

Reed tugged at Aeris' clothes, "Hey, let's keep going."

[Nara-pyon]

The tug was just enough to distract Aeris - temporarily - from the wonder of the building around her, and she turned back to Reed and smiled sheepishly at him.

"Sorry," she apologized. "It's been a very long time since I've seen a place as beautiful as this."

Now paying attention again, she noticed the race and lineage of the person behind the counter, and she couldn't help but clap her hands together with glee at the sight.

"Hello!" she beamed, skipping forward. "It's so nice to see another dragonborn! It's been a while! My name is Aeris Frosthorn, I'd like to register here! I've been studying magic for as long as I can remember, and I'm here to learn more about it! I'd like to learn as much as I can!"

As usual, she was unaware that she was babbling, and quite possibly sharing more information than she should (or than people cared about). In fact, if no one stopped her, she would probably keep going.

[Kara Winters]

There was a deep rumbling chuckle from the dragonborn behind the desk. He waved his hand and muttered an incantation under his breath. An mage hand spell, paper, glass quill and an ink well floated up onto the counter before he sent it off to get a folder, tassle and tags.

"I am Kevan the guild master, is this your first time out?" he asked kindly.

"How did you guess?" Reed asked in turn.

[Nara-pyon]

"The first, but hopefully not the last," Aeris giggled. "I want to learn everything I can about magic. As many spells as I can!"

She watched his use of the mage hand, and wished she had a reason to use her own mage hand.

[Kara Winters]

"Well then, experience as an adventurer will teach you a lot," Kevan replied as he waited for his mage hand to bring back the items needed.

Once they had arrived he took two sheets of paper and began to write on them in neat handwriting that suggested he was well taught.

"Here," he handed each a paper as he suspected Reed was here for the same reason and each a quill, "Write your names, your class and the spells you know. Registration is free here, but that is with the agreement that when requested you'll help. Naturally you'll be paid, but commissions from requests is where the guild gets its coin."

[Nara-pyon]

"Oh, we've just come from the Adventurer's Guild, we registered there, too!"

She reached for a paper and quill, and in her neat Common script, she wrote, Aeris Frosthorn, Sorcerer. Known spells: Create Bonfire, Mage Hand, Mending, Prestidigitation, Magic Missile, Shield.

Once she had finished, she passed it back to Kevan. "Thank you," she smiled at him. "Is there some way that you'll contact us if we're needed to perform a spell for someone? We've rooms at the Adventurers Guild, and we do hope to go out on adventures, so how will we know if we're needed here?"

[Kara Winters]

As Reed filled out his form, he half listened to Kevan's answer. He was curious himself to that question.

Kevan's eyes twinkled with mirth as he took Aeris' paper and looked it over. Then he pointed over to where the old woman in wizard robes. She had a long braid of iron gray hair that was long enough that it curled upon her seat.

"Introduce yourself to Selene over there, she's the owner of the Trinkets and Baubles magic shop. More importantly as a wizard she knows the Sending spell. When we get requests we ask her to check in with the Adventuer's Guild to see if the person we're looking for is there, and then she can send a message to you. If you're the receiver of that message you can send a short one back, but only a short one, so we try to keep it simple. We have her on retainer for things like this as she's one of the few wizards who have permanent residency in town."

"Very useful," Reed commented as he handed over his paper, "Most wouldn't use magic for something like that."

"You must be out of country," Kevan commented, "This country has always had an unusual number of mages, the closer you get to the capitol, the more likely you'll see magic used for every day things."

[Nara-pyon]

"Well, it all sounds very convenient at least," Aeris smiled warmly. Something was tugging at her memory, and it distracted her from listening to Kevan's comment about the amount of mages closer to the capital. Hadn't Risa said something about a Selene from Trinkets and Baubles ... ?

"Oh!" She remembered suddenly, and her eyes lit up with the excitement of it. "We were told to ask her about a paladin named Pax who stays at the Adventurer's Guild! It seems he's going to be in the room near mine, or something like that?"

[Kara Winters]

"His room is next to yours and you're several rooms down from us and that makes Zoltan a bittt nervous," Reed replied holding his fingers together.

"Ah... yes," Kevan though seemed to be a bit confused as to why Pax needed to have someone ask about him, "The two use to adventure together before Selene retired. Since then Pax has used Oak Glen has his primary town, and some of her old friends drop by from time to time."

[Nara-pyon]

"Zoltan's nervous about everything," Aeris commented, not in a negative manner, just as a factual observation. Her smile never left her face. "So, we talk to Selene so that she can send us messages if we're needed - and then what do we do? Can we go straight to the library? Oh, no ..."

She looked at Reed. "You'll want to go to the Bard Guild then, won't you? And then we probably should look for some work, right? Although, we did just get into town, maybe we really should rest a bit before we get to work. What do you think, Reed?"

[Kara Winters]

Despite the fact that Reed kind of agreed with Zoltan about Aeris, he couldn't help but agree with Aeris about Zoltan, so it was all fair.

"Are you sure you're not a wizard," Kevan chuckled a bit under his breath, "Go to the Bard's Guild first, they have a library for the public. It's not as large in arcane as ours, but you'll find a lot on lore, history and the like. Always good to also know."

"And we could rest a bit before taking on some work," Reed added, "Besides the library isn't going anywhere."

[Nara-pyon]

"All right," Aeris nodded, still smiling. "I guess I'm just so eager to start learning! There really wasn't a lot to learn back home, that's why my family allowed me to go come on this journey, so I'm very eager to learn."

She giggled sheepishly. "But yes, rest is important, too. Thank you, Kevan."

She paused for a moment, looking around as if trying to calm herself and collect her thoughts. "Is there anything else we need before we go?"

[Kara Winters]

"Don't forget your tags," Kevan replied as he began to prepare the folders that would hold Aeris' and Reed's files.

Reed snatched them off the counter and handed one to Aeris. Unlike the Adventuer's Guild, these were made of brass (probably to mimic gold), they had the name of the guild and an oak tree on it. Once Aeris had her tag, Reed held out a hand to her.

"Shall we go introduce ourselves?" he asked, ready to lead the way.

[Nara-pyon]

Aeris tucked her tag safely into her bag and took Reed's hand.

"Lead the way," she smiled warmly at him, ready to meet this new person.

She was eager to meet someone new, but she was almost ready to admit that the travel was catching up to her, and she was getting very close to being ready to rest.

[Kara Winters]

The two made their way over to the veteran wizard. If it weren't for her dark blue wizard robes she would have appeared like an ordinary human. She wore no jewelry, except for an iron ring on her left hand.

"Excuse me," Reed spoke up.

Selene looked up from the book she was reading curiously. She studied the two, as they made quite the pair.

"Ah..." her voice was soft and slightly gravely, "Newcomers?"

Her eyes flickered over to Kevan who nodded before going on with his work. She looked back at them and smiled.

"Perhaps even new residents of this town?"

[Nara-pyon]

Aeris' eyes flashed with renewed excitement.

"Oh, you're good," she giggled. "How did you know?"

She made a regular habit of casting Prestidigitation on herself and her clothes, so she was clean, and of course, to her, her excitement was natural, so she had no idea that anyone would see it as a newcomer's excitement.

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