Otherworldly Monster Tamer Chronicles: Prologue
Adding this to the beginning to make it clear: I am an author over at Royalroadl.com and I will be posting this story there from now on. Royalroadl.com is a site far better suited to long stories than Prose is and I hope that others interested in publishing their own long and original works like me begin to make the move over to Royalroadl.com although I will be posting short stand-alone things over here and will continue posting stories over here, just my main ones (this and The Forgotten Kingdom & The Summoner's Plea) will primarily be posted on Royal Road. Check out my profile on RoyalRoadL and see how TFKTSP is going! https://royalroadl.com/user/profile/71639
The Adventurer’s Guild in Albatross is a small building due to the small size of the settlement it’s located in. It’s a simple structure because no one expects much of Albatross due to its isolated location and relative lack of natural resources. In fact the primary reason why there’s a Adventurer’s Guild building in there in the first place is due to its relative closeness to areas and ecosystems filled with monsters and demihumans. Despite the incompetent adventurers who live in Albatross, Albatross could theoretically turn into a wealthy location if skilled adventurers appeared who could reliably capture and make use of the monsters and demihumans who lived relatively closeby, but instead the Adventurer’s Guild had the misfortune of being staffed by a competent administration but unskilled and lousy adventurers.
Rafael was one of the Adventurer’s Guild competent staff members. He served as a friendly and amicable face for adventurers who needed information on quests and he also gave out rewards for special items and for quest completion, whenever a rare individual was found who wasn’t halfway awful at being an adventurer. Today would begin a long series of shocks that turn Rafael’s experiences behind his desk from one that he wasn’t particularly fond of into an often surprising and never boring experience he’d quickly learn to love and it all begins with a single young adventurer, perhaps 19 or 20 walking through the door into the Guild. Or at least he assumed she was an adventurer due to her metallic armor, but the way she walked suggested another career maybe as a performer of some kind. She entered the Guild and briskly walked to Rafael’s desk, before swinging her backpack onto the desk. “Hello sir, do you happen to know the price for freshly captured slimes?” She asked eagerly and with a curious glint in her eyes which to Rafael either signaled greed or curiosity, or a dangerous mixture of the two that he had only ever seen in his birthplace, the city of Talon where adventurers of all skill levels had a similar glint. “Umm… first let me check the prices.” He responded after being shocked that she had suggested that she had such a difficult to acquire item both due to the item itself and due to his estimation of how old she probably was.
The beautiful young girl was wearing ornately crafted armor which suggested that she was either a high-ranking soldier or adventurer or had a talented blacksmith as an ally. It was copper, much like the color of her hair, but clearly skillfully crafted and also easy to move in given the speed the girl demonstrated earlier when she was walking to Rafael’s desk. Rafael quickly searched for the information she asked for and when he found it immediately read aloud. “It’s a silver coin for each slime and at most we’re taking 5 at a time, for ordinary blue slimes.” He told the girl, who nodded and responded “Excellent, master will be quite pleased!” She said and before he could ask her what she meant she grabbed two thick glass bottles from within her backpack and placed them on the desk. “These are five ordinary blue slimes, my master already verified that there’s nothing particularly special about them but he told me to anticipate that you’d double-check.” And as soon as she finished she looked at Rafael with a look that clearly told him she didn’t want to be there and for him to hurry up. Rafael signed internally and activated one of the skills he got by virtue of his class, “Receptionist” and used his “Appraisers Eye”. Luckily each of the blue slimes possessed exactly the same characteristics.
[Unnamed Blue Slime]
[Class: Cannon Fodder]
[Level: 1]
[HP: 10/10]
[Danger Level: F]
[Intelligence: 10]
[Physical Skill: 5]
[Skills: Fluid Body, Elasticity, Flexibility, Blood Sucking Kiss, Slash Resistance]
[Value: Due to their basic nature these slimes are worth roughly 1 silver coin each. If they possessed special skills or above average stats this number would be considerably higher but they lack those so their value is normal for their species and stats.]
A few minutes later the young girl would be on her way home. She had been happy to hear that Rafael confirmed what her master told her and did so honestly since she had a passive skill to detect lies. She knew he’d be honest but was excited to be right, just in case it made her master generous. She took her coins and left, but as she was leaving silently activated a skill of her own, since she predicted that Rafael would try to use his visual skill on her. Her mysterious skill, a gift from her master, prevented visual skills from revealing her information, aside from her class which was “Merchant” which she didn’t care about revealing. She had no doubt that Rafael (whose name she doesn’t know or care to know) would come to know more about her in time, especially since her master wasn’t particularly fond of humans despite him being a human himself. He favored sending her out as his representative and voice, particularly when it came to purchasing or selling goods. Not only did she have a much friendlier personality than he did, she also possessed passive skills which improved her abilities as a merchant due to her species and her class.
Paola was overjoyed to have gotten home when she arrived a few minutes after leaving the Adventurer’s Guild. Her home, the facility owned by her master, was a masterpiece of magical architecture and also her favorite place in the world. It was a massive, and strange living facility which generally took on the appearance of a small mansion coupled with extensive crafting areas such as a technologically advanced forge for the dwarves and for the cyclops, a nice little farm area for the servants who prefer farms over housing options more suitable for humans and demihumans, and even some areas suitable for the creation of and testing of potions which was why her master had acquired a small family of goblins who specialized in such a task. Her own housing was a single relatively undecorated room, where she had simple calculators, safes, and documents related to the transfer of wealth since she was a merchant and obsessed with anything and everything related to the wealth of her master and herself.
Paola was actually one of the newest people to join her master, because he wanted to gain servants who were skilled crafters before he became an adventurer or a store-owner or any possible major career. He wanted skilled individuals of any species who possessed remarkable talents when it came to creating things, be it works of art, or armor and weapons. He had searched far and wide using his living and mobile facility for the most talented creators he could find and he worked hard to convince them to join him. In Paola’s case it had been easy for her to surrender to him, because he knew that the key to her heart was giving her methods by which she could easily and safely acquire wealth. He had already acquired some of the finest blacksmiths she had ever seen, as well as having developed an eye for wealth himself and an impressive business sense for a human. His primary problems were that he had never acquired the “Merchant” class himself and that he didn’t have a particularly warm personality, being rather direct and lacking the gentle manners suitable for the best merchants so when he came across her he directly proved to her that he was a talented individual who had steadily acquired many talented servants and wanted her to join him. She eagerly said yes and embraced Jonah as her master. In exchange she became a trusted servant and one tasked with representing Jonah and the rest of her fellow servants as their spokesperson. She also made all of the business calculations and worked tirelessly to ensure that each day brought new wealth and prosperity to their family.
Her master was named Jonah and he was a mysterious human with a variety of unusual abilities. He was one of the very few skilled monster tamers, but unlike every other tamer she had ever seen his powers were also capable of affecting sentient demihumans and even undead beings. He and one of his servants, a skilled and youthful doberman beastman named Brent had gone out and captured the slimes that Paola had sold while the two were exploring this new territory. Slimes were the most basic of monsters but Brent despite his innate talent was inexperienced, so Jonah had wanted to test Brent’s skills in the field and was pleased that capturing monsters, something incredibly more difficult than simply slaying them, wasn’t difficult for the young servant. Since their opponents had been unintelligent slimes it was easy for Brent to round them up, while Jonah used his magical power to dominate their minds and make them easily controllable for others, including those who lacked the ability to tame monsters.
Paola’s adventures with Jonah and the rest of her new unorthodox family were just beginning. As were Rafael’s experiences with Paola, and eventually Jonah and other humans, demihumans, monsters, and demons.
[Paola Lizbeth]
[Class: Merchant]
[Level: 25]
[HP: 250/250]
[Danger Level: C]
[Intelligence: 500]
[Physical Skill: 50]
[Skills: Protection From Detection*, Merchant’s Tongue, Greedy Seller, Miserly Buyer, Immunity To Debuffs, Illusion Magic (Level 6), Gravity Magic (Level 2)]
[Species: Greed Demon]
*Not Paola’s own skill but rather gifted to her by Jonah to protect her species identification and protect her from experiencing needless speciesism.
A "Other-World" type book/story I've been working on for a while now. Anticipate regular uploads and of course let me know what you think. It'll also be up on Deviant Art if you want to support me there. I'm always looking for feedback and for your thoughts so share them with me if you feel like you have some valuable insights.