The Golem Adventurer

Chapter 17 - Portents

An air of tension hung in the presence around the Guildmaster as he reclined in his office. In front of him still sat the paperwork from yesterday, but reading it over now was far from his mind. With the country's garrison stationed with the other Nation Alliance armies up north, the bulk of patching the holes of the city's defenses had fallen on to the guild.

The Alliance may be compensating us with a considerable sum of money, he thought, but we don't have enough bodies to help with both the patrols in and around the city. Let alone deal with helping out policing the highway.

With the threat of Dmitri's Privateers gone thanks to Arlan, the casualties among the militia and his own adventurers have dropped considerably. But now news reached him of an orc sty in the southern forests. One terrible group merely replaced with another.

He had already sent out his own scouting group, but the forest was too vast for just one. It stretched many miles south almost reaching the borders of Tonelli and Weiss. If he didn't hear from them today, he'll have to form more to help them. The Guildmaster decided to increase the monetary compensation to give them a bit more motivation to search thoroughly. They haven't had to deal with an orc sty in decades. With more younger adventurers filling the ranks, they don't realize how much devastation an sty could do if left alone long enough.

Should he be a bit more strict when managing the guild? The thought passed his mind. Threats like these never go away. With Arlan's sudden appearance, his motivation to do more has never been stronger. Physically, at least. He would hate to say it, but Arlan might already surpass the majority of the A-Rankers already in strength alone. If he continued their evening training, with his intuition in battle, it wouldn't be a surprise if he claimed the top spot as Haldin's strongest. Before him at least. The Guildmaster was retired but he wasn't ready to pass his titles on to the next generation just yet. The world had shown him in these recent times how far a person can go. He wouldn't let something like age stop him.

There was a sudden knock on his door, "Come in!" he shouts.

The door opened as Vella stepped in. Her face was plastered with concern, "Guildmaster Kurtz," she gave him a polite greeting that was tinged with worry.

"What's wrong, girl? If you're here about the paperwork, I haven't finished it yet."

Her annoyance started to creep in, "You STILL haven't finished it!? I told you yesterday that- wait no! That isn't why I'm here!" She flattened her blouse with her hands as means to recompose herself, "We just got word from a few of our returning parties that there's been several incidents on the southern highway. A couple of caravans have been attacked in speedy succession."

The Guildmaster was incredulous, "What!? What was the patrol doing at the time?"

"According to them, they were consistently being attacked by a small horde of goblins, Guildmaster. They were holed up on one portion of the road by one group while another was raiding travelers on the road."

The Guildmaster sat back in his chair and thinking, "Hmm, they were stalling for time while the rest of their group was coordinating an attack on wagons? Did they steal supplies?"

"That's the thing, Guildmaster. Nothing was stolen. The caravan's weren't looted. But there had been kidnappings."

Kurtz stood on end, "Kidnappings? Explain!"

"All of the caravans had someone taken from them by goblins. Almost all of them children and only a handful of adults. We've counted at least twelve missing so far. There's been no fatalities but we have a few survivors that are critically injured and being rushed to the healers- wha, Guildmaster?"