quests, gossip, and mysteries

When I came to, I found myself back in Port Bastok, where I started my adventuring. I don't know how I got back there. I'm assuming some carried me, but... well, no one in town knows me; how would they know to bring me there?

Weird.

Since I was still feeling sore from my "battle" (if you could call it that), I decided to talk to more townsfolk and see what I could learn. Which means my list of quests has grown considerably:

• Michea, an Elvaan goldsmith, wants me to bring her a copper ingot so she can complete an order.
  
• A housewife wants to buy four flint stones from me so she can cook dinner.
  
• Hungry Wolf wants me to bring him a Galkan sausage.
  
• Malene's had a package stolen by a monster and has asked me to find & retrieve it for her.
  
• Nbu Latteh would like me to bring a copper ring to her daughter as a gift from her.
  
• Benita's looking for a quick way to clean her chimney. Apparently her mother-in-law knows a way, so I'm to track her down and ask.
  
• Brygid thinks I will look smashing in a robe and bronze subligar, and wants me to obtain such items for her amusement. *rolls eyes* I could use them, though, so I might as well.
  
• The mercenary company "Salaheem's Sentinels" has asked me to help recruit new members.
  

Oh, and I still need to finish that stamp hunt and kill some monsters in the mines. Sure have enough to keep me busy for a while. Especially since I have no idea where/how to get some of this stuff. I mean, copper ingots? Can you buy those somewhere?

I've heard some interesting tidbits about the town. Some folks in the Metalworks were gossiping about the Chief Engineer, a hume named Cid (why does that name sound familiar)? They say he's brilliant, but a bit short-tempered. Too engrossed in his work, I guess. And some of the Galka have mentioned...well, it sounds like a myth, actually, about a wise Galka who disappeared twenty years ago. I'm intrigued. I love a good mystery.

I'm annoyed about those bats. Except for some childhood scraps, I haven't had any experience with fighting. It'd be nice to find a mentor who could give me some pointers.

there's so much I don't know

Right, so I need to find out how to get copper ingots. Since it was a goldsmith who asked me, I figured I'd head to the jewelry shop to see if I could buy some. Seems obvious, right?

No such luck--copper ingots aren't for sale. But I noticed a side room off from the shop, and me being the inquisitive girl that I am, couldn't help checking it out.

A woman looked up as I entered. "Are you here to join the Goldsmithing Guild?" she asked. I said, "Uh, yes?" I mean, I'm still not entirely sure what all this adventuring stuff entails, so maybe I need to learn how to smith...

She signed me up and told me a bunch of stuff that I can't remember about how the Guild works (my mind tends to wander when it comes to bureaucratic stuff like that), but then she started talking about synthesizing things. Which is TOTALLY COOL. Basically you take a crystal and a bunch of stuff and do some hocus-pocus on it and end up with something entirely new.

And then she gave me my first synthesis recipe and GUESS WHAT? Yup, it's for a copper ingot! I need the following: 1 Fire Crystal, 1 chunk of copper ore, and 6 copper nuggets.

I know you can get fire crystals from killing monsters; when I was down in the mines attempting to beat up some bats, I saw others finding crystals on monsters they whoop-assed. But... I don't know where to get the rest. Because of course the store doesn't sell those items.

Which means it's back to the drawing board on that copper ingot. *sighs*

Meanwhile, I've been trying to finish the stamp hunt. I thought I had found all the stamps, but when I tried to give the sheet back to Arawn he just waved it away and kept talking about the badge that Alib-Mufalib had given me to help recruit some Sentinels. And by that he means mercenaries.

...I just don't know what to think about that. It's not like Alib-Mufalib gave me much choice; he badgered me into agreeing to help him before I even realised I'd been asked to do something. I suppose I could just ignore the thing, but it seems like people's eyes are drawn to the badge even when I'm not trying to bring it to their attention.

I'm the kind of girl who has never really held strong opinions about anything, because my world was so tiny there wasn't anything to have an opinion about. But since I've started adventuring the world's gotten much bigger and suddenly I'm surrounded by opinions. I don't know anything about Aht Urghan other than it's on the Aradjiah continent and that's a long, long way from here. Others seem to know a lot, though, because they sure do have strong opinions--so much that some of them are thinking about becoming mercenaries and joining the Sentinels.

And now I can't help wondering why I'm doing this adventuring thing anyway. I knew it involved questing and fighting monsters and magic-casting. Questing is fun, and I'm not opposed to fighting monsters because they're all over the place and something needs to be done about them. But mercenaries? That's not killing monsters, that's killing people. Which is something I'm not sure I'd want to do.

Too many frustrations. Too many things to think about.