Chapter 8 Windfall Blues

Fenris was positive that whatever Jim was doing had to be far more important than what he himself was doing.  It just had to be.

“As acting mayor, I dedicate this statue to the Windfall town mascot,” called Fenris, cutting the ribbon.  There were hoots and cheers from the Falconians and questioning looks from the Windfallians.

The Dark Overlord had been reborn, war was coming, and the Falconians had to have their statue of Ultimate Badgelor.  Even more stupefying was the fact that Windfall already had a town mascot, and it certainly wasn’t a badger. It was that weird, short-armed lizard on the town’s flag. Not that Fenris thought Badgelor was unworthy of a statue, but the little badger was just so humble. He’d probably be embarrassed to death when he saw it.

Fenris walked a handful of paces over to the structure he absolutely should have started his presentation with and smiled at his old friend.

“You are a skeezah,” said his ‘old friend’, professionally of course.

“As a special project of the Mayor, I hereby declare the Adventurer’s Guild open!  Per mayoral decree, anyone who desires to train as an adventurer may do so in these dark times,” said Fenris. This time, it was the Windfallians responding with uproarious cheers.  A few of the Falconians politely applauded.

The Guildmaster cleared his throat before speaking in his thick basstown accent. “All applicants will be considered.  At the moment, training is being offered in the Woodsman, Warrior, Paladin, Zealot, and Clerical classes.”

Splendid Gloria beamed at her husband. Even Fenris had to admit Glorious Robert looked good in a Basstown professor’s robe.  It had classical appeal, with puma skin on the purple robe’s flaps and the traditional cane and hat. The giant velociraptor giving the thumbs up was the outfit’s only nod to present-day Windfall.

“I’m surprised you didn’t go for something more modern,” commented Fenris, as Glorious Robert followed him off the stage.

“None of your yokels even know how a modern professor dresses,” chuckled the former fisherman.  “I had to go iconic for this, and nothing screams purpose like purple.”

“Just so long as you don’t end up naming it the Basstown Adventurer’s Guild,” chuckled Fenris.

“Don’t tempt me. We certainly aren’t calling it anything wind themed,” stated Glorious Robert.

Fenris actually agreed with that.  The problem with the naming system in Windfall was that Grebthar hadn’t been very creative.  Everything was “Windfall this” or “The Wind’s that”.  Once you lived in Windfall for a bit, the naming scheme got annoying.

“No luck with the rogue trainer?” asked Fenris.

“Too much, actually.  Ashe can’t take the role. It requires at least a Journeyman Mentor skill and she’s not even close,” said Glorious Robert.

“Oh, no,” groaned Splendid Gloria.

“The Dalton Girls knew about it, and of course they sang a power ballad about Ashe’s new training regime in the town square attended by just about everyone,” said Glorious Robert sighing.  “Including the Falconians.  Turns out they have many rogues with the Mentor skill who would just love to teach and I’m running out of decent arguments against it.”

Fenris nodded, the actual problem was the same one Jim had been dealing with, money.

Specifically, the Falconians had money, and Windfall did not.   Fenris knew this from the military side of the equation.

Arming the Dashing Dandies was a daunting task, each soldier requiring an increasingly expensive suit of armor and weapon plus all of the other assorted materials required to just keep them as a valuable fighting force.

The expense was typically what caused militia forces to become ineffective.  Even getting the Dashing Dandies capable of reliably engaging someone in the high 20’s was incredibly tough, and Jim wanted the force up to the levels described in the holy texts where they reliably fought against powerhouse adventurers that were at least level 40.

Zorlando was their trump card. His Path allowed him to treat each member of his own unit as an extension of himself.  That meant that while he was alive, they could defeat any adventurer who was short of level forty easily, much to the chagrin of the Falconians who assumed that they would stomp on the ‘new’ Dandies.

When the Falconians realized what was happening, they started specifically going after Zorlando.  When he went down the rest of the unit’s cohesion collapsed.  In turn, Zorlando was getting better at fighting from the rear, which annoyed him but was probably for the best. The former mercenary’s desire to be in the thick of combat was going to get himself killed one of these days.

Back on topic, Glorious Robert was seeing the problem from the academic side of things.  Specifically, the new Adventurer’s guild cost gold to operate and the budget Fenris had been able to shake loose was wildly insufficient for the school to operate at even partial occupancy.

If Glorious Robert wanted to run the guild at full swing, as Jim demanded, he’d need a massive infusion of gold.  Letting the Falconians teach the divine classes was one thing, they were in many cases the only really qualified instructors.

Class Trainers, Fenris grunted, remembering the correct term.

While a Falconian Class Trainer for Paladins made perfect sense, Windfall had Rogues. Maybe only one of them he fully trusted, but just assigning Ashe would keep the Falconians from worming their way into yet another aspect of Windfall’s existence.

Already the Falconians had been spending gold like wastrels.  They bought up every building Fenris would let them, and invested into everything else.  The Wind’s Saw was being upgraded and now was partially owned by the Duchess.

Speak of the devil.

“Mayor Fenris,” she said, nodding slightly.  Acknowledging his title was a major concession from her.  Depending on your view of the current Falconian royal dynamics she was either the first or second most important political figure in Falcon.  She had just given him as much acknowledgment as she would have reserved for someone like King HarCharles.

At least she’s not trying to steal my hammer.

Then he felt AvaSophia grip his arm more tightly.  Of course, the Duchess had other swords of his that she wanted.  The young woman standing next to her was equally problematic. Her smile was warm and inviting, and entirely excluded his wife.

“Duchess,” replied Fenris, examining the younger woman’s name tag, “And Emma.”

Emma’s actual name was considerably longer, and probably had Julia buried in it somewhere, but that was its own problem.  Fenris was far too unimportant to waste a Julia on, the Royal family might consider an Emma.

“Greetings, Mayor Fenris,” said Emma.  She wasn’t as pretty as his wife, but there was something about her that…

Fenris clamped down.  After Jim warned him about Bashara, Fenris had practiced to figure out when his mind was being manipulated.  Emma wasn’t using anything nefarious, just the standard issue Rogue charisma perks that were always on.

Most rogues claimed they couldn’t turn them off, Fenris wasn’t sure if he believed them.

Emma recognized Fenris’ attitude shift instantly.  She stepped back slightly and coughed.  AvaSophia shook her head slightly and then gripped Fenris’ arm again.  He hadn’t even realized she had slackened somewhat.

The Duchess realized it as well, and barreled forward to prevent an awkward pause in the conversation.  “Emma was just telling me how much she would love to teach her skills to a new crop of adventurers.”

“We appreciate that,” said Glorious Robert, who was far too low ranked to even waste an Emma on, “but there isn’t even a training course setup for rogues.”

“Well, if that’s all that stopping my precious Emma from realizing her dream, I’d be happy to pay for the training hall,” said the Duchess.  Fenris had checked and that hall would cost thousands of gold pieces that Windfall didn’t have.

“I’ll consider that,” said Fenris.

“We all have to be prepared to fight the Dark Overlord. It would be depressing if the Mayor found out we were doing anything less,” smiled the duchess.