Hime's Arrival to Silver Wolf!

"What do I think? They're interesting places. I like Hargeon Town and Beanstalk Village. Hargeon Town has a good view of the ocean, pretty good seafood, and quite a few clothing shops to choose from. Beanstalk Village has a lot of friendly people and an herbal medicine shop with a great selection to choose from." Leona recounted. She could speak with authority on the herbal medicine shop. Margaret had patched her up three times before during her work to research the mysterious plant and stop it from spreading. Speaking of Margaret, Leona had not heard from her, Gary, or Amanda lately. Leona hoped that everything was OK.

"Silent Cemetery and Lycan Woods aren't places to bring the family. If you go to either one, you'd better be ready to fight. There are plenty of undead in Silent Cemetery... I've read that zombies and ghosts populate the cemetery, but skeletal warriors show up a lot. That place is creepy, especially at night. No matter when you go there, be careful." Leona warned Hime.

"As the name would suggest, Lycan Woods is full of werewolves. I took a couple of jobs there and the place isn't for the faint of heart. One time I had to retrieve a wealthy man's flesh-eating mares from a barbarian king who had a fortified camp in the woods. Another time I was hired to thin the werewolf population after it destroyed a village named Lycuston. In my opinion, werewolves are more frightening than the undead because they can move fast, hit hard, hunt in packs, and even think." Leona warned Hime. The job to hunt werewolves was a tough one because of everything she had listed. It took the help of Mark and the Wolfsmane militia to complete the job, and even with help it was still a challenge.

"Hosenka? It's a quiet place and a nice one. I helped save a farmer named Jed from being hit with a 10,000 Jewel fine for having messy stables. I had to work all night from sundown to sunrise because the town sent inspectors to check if he had cleaned his stables of horse manure. It was a hard and unpleasant job, but I worked through the night and finished just minutes before the inspectors showed up. It was satisfying because it proved that I could do more than just fight and kill people." Leona told Hime with satisfaction. The blonde once wondered if all she was good for was fighting and killing. The job in Hosenka proved to her that she could save lives without using violence.

"Tolgalen's a bustling seaside place with a busy harbor and pretty good scenery, but it's kinda crowded and hard to get anywhere with so many people walking around. I especially like the beach. I want to go to the beach again some day." Leona gave her opinion of Tolgalen. Hime had patiently listened to her so far. She hoped that the young woman was not getting bored with Leona's stories.

"It was no problem, Hime." Leona said to her. The blonde was surprised that someone was genuinely interested in her stories. Other mages were certain to have had had more and more exciting adventures than she did, but Hime wanted to hear Leona's stories, so she told them. It reminded the blonde of the elderly storyteller in Nebdoui. The storyteller was an older man named Mustafa who was eighty years of age but still had a sharp mind and a powerful voice.

He remembered all of the old stories, such as old folk stories common to all the tribes of Desierto and the village's history dating from when he was a boy. Leona remembered sitting and listening to him talk for hours on end about the days before the alliances with Berreb and Regudo. He spoke of the Three Cities and how the sultan's palace had a dome of gold that travelers could spot in the distance long before they could even see the gates of the city. She recalled how her mother tried to get him to write down the stories, but there was one small problem. Like most of the older people of Nebdoui, Mustafa did not know how to read or write.

Undaunted by the magnitude of her task, Sophia listened to him and recorded every story by hand. It took a week, but Sophia accomplished her goal. How she did was beyond Leona, but it showed the kind of determination that ran in the Jarnefeldt family. Samuel was determined to remain a trader despite the risks and Sophia was devoted to being a scribe despite the resistance from older villagers. Leonidas persisted in becoming a blacksmith and Leona persisted in becoming a traveling mage who would risk bodily harm or even death to complete a job, no matter how big or small the job was.

Leona was jolted from her reminiscing by the presence of Hime. The young woman had been quite patient with her and tolerant of her rambling. She probably had things that she wanted to do some time before next year, so Leona probably needed to start winding it down. That would be Hime's choice to make. She could go on her way or she could request more stories.

"Is there anything else you wanted to ask me, Hime?" Leona asked the young woman. Being a storyteller was an interesting experience. It also made Leona feel older than she really was.

"Why I joined Silver Wolf? I joined Silver Wolf for two reasons." Leona started her explanation.

"The first reason had to do with jobs I took back when I wasn't part of a guild. I was hired to collect Soul Gems from the undead infesting the cemetery. I fought at least four waves of skeleton warriors and collected eight gems, but I got hurt a few times. I was out there by myself and had no one to help. If I hadn't been so tough, I probably would have died there." Leona explained the first part.

"Next was the job to apprehend Jacob Goodnight in Hargeon Town. We had been trading hits until he took me by surprise. He had me hanging upside down from a chain connected to my feet and was about to gut me with a butcher knife when I broke loose. Again, I was totally on my own and no one was going to come to the rescue. If I hadn't gotten free, I would have been killed." Leona finished her explanation about the jobs. Now came the meeting with Leila Vergious.

"It was a few days after killing Jacob Goodnight that I met Leila Vergious in a restaurant in Hargeon Town. I didn't feel that going it alone was smart, so I asked her about some guilds and whether they were looking for new members. As it turned out, she was the Guild Master of Silver Wolf and she was looking for people to join the guild." Leona said to Hime.

"We talked and I told her that I wasn't some once-in-a-generation magic prodigy. She said that my status as an inexperienced mage didn't matter. All that mattered was that I was willing to work for Silver Wolf. So I joined up. And the rest is history." Leona finished her explanation of how she came to join the guild. She was still weak compared to the former Guild Master, but she had grown strong enough to become an Ace. Leona would have to grow stronger still in order to keep the guild safe from those who coveted its resources. That would take time and patience, but she would get there. For now she had to focus on completing jobs, greeting newcomers, and keeping the guild hall safe.

Hime expressed the belief that Leona was a good person. That was mostly true. Mostly.

"I try to be one." Leona started.

"When threats push around the little guy, I try to be there to give the bullies a shove back. Because of life in Desierto, I used to be a lot quicker to resort to lethal force against bandits and other enemies. It took an encounter with a Legal mage named Aura Sparks to get me to try for knockouts instead. I'm not proud of having to kill, but some threats just can't be talked down. Jacob Goodnight was one of them... so were Bladdi Maccoi and Mutura of the Sands." Leona candidly told Hime. If Hime reconsidered her thought of Leona as a good person after that candid explanation, she had every right to do so. Sometimes the blonde considered herself a hypocrite for complaining about having to use violence when she took jobs to hunt serial killers of her own accord. She could not flop back and forth forever. Leona needed to pick a side of the issue and stick to it.

"Easier jobs? I suppose you can put it that way." Leona started.

"I joined because in a way, you're right. Jobs are easier with guildmates helping out. If I get into trouble as a member of a guild, I have a good chance of guildmates coming to my rescue, or at least finding my body if the worst happens." Leona explained the first part of her reasoning.

"For example, Eero Saarinen helped save my bacon after a trip to the Spooky Forest. He helped by providing me with part of a vine harvested from the forest for an experiment. If I had gone on my own, I would have had to go all the way back to Spooky Forest and risk getting ensnared by the vine that I saved Eero from and the vine that provided the sample for our projects." Leona provided an example of why she had joined a guild. The custom weapon job was a good reason why having a friend nearby was never a bad idea. If it had not been for Leona, Eero might have never escaped the vine. If it had not been for Eero, Leona would have been hard-pressed to find another ingredient for her magical machete.

"Another reason was to have a steady home. Since I got kicked out of Nebdoui, I didn't have another home to really go to. I didn't want to go back to Berreb or the Three Cities. Here I have my own room, three guaranteed meals a day, and reasonable physical security provided by the Phoenix Mountains." Leona added. Now to talk about Leila Vergious.

"Leila Vergious was the former Guild Master of Silver Wolf. In a way, she was the third reason I joined. She convinced me that the guild had a place for a desert bumpkin like me even if I wasn't a super-powerful mage. I was afraid that Silver Wolf wouldn't want me because I wasn't from a famous magic-using family or using a rare type of magic, but Leila said that didn't matter." The blonde recounted.

"As far as Leila's magic goes... I can't tell you because I never got a chance to see her use it. But she was a lot stronger than me. She could have flattened me with one finger if she wanted. Thankfully she didn't... she was a kind person who cared about her guild members." Leona explained what little she knew of the former Guild Master. Leila and Poko were friends, so maybe Hime should ask Poko. However, Poko was frequently busy, so that might not be a good idea.

"Aura Sparks is a good person too. She's a good listener, a strong mage, and even though she doesn't like killing, she didn't make me feel bad by calling me ugly names, even after I killed a bandit who was about to kill me. She's the one who made me reconsider using lethal force for every fight." Leona started explaining about Aura Sparks to Hime. Aura was from Crystal Swan, one of Fiore's most famous Legal guilds. She was a good person to know and all but carried Leona during the second half of the mission, which was clearing out the bandit camp.

"Aura helped me finish a job in the Unknown Lands, a job to help recover food supplies for cat people who were on the verge of starving. Even though I did a few dumb things like accidentally find the main bandit camp while scouting ahead, she didn't shout at me and make me feel dumb. She just asked that I try not to do that too often. Aura also saved me from the bandit leader, a really big guy who was invulnerable to magic from the knees up. My magic was almost useless, but Aura summoned a bow-wielding Medusa straight from a storybook and knocked the guy out... we recovered the food and saved the cat people." Leona gave a brief rundown of the job with Aura.

"Aura's the reason I'm wearing these gauntlets. The cat people gave them to me as a reward for saving them." Leona said to Hime, showing off her Argent Gloves. She wondered how the blue-haired mage was doing. Leona might try to contact her and work another job with her some day.

"It's no problem, Hime. I'm not offended." Leona replied. Technically joining a guild was the easier way, but she did not mind. It was nice to have a roof over one's head, three full meals a day, a safe place to sleep, and a place to store personal belongings with a reasonable expectation that they would not go missing. It was also nice to have guildmates to go on jobs with. Being a Guildless mage was a life of freedom, but it could also get lonely.

Leona thought that she would be a Guildless mage for the rest of her days, but that line of thought changed after the experience with Jacob Goodnight. It was true that Guildless mages had absolute freedom to choose jobs without regard for moral alignment, but most of the best-paying jobs were reserved for mages who were part of a guild. However, joining a guild offered security but necessitated giving up a degree of freedom. After answering a lot of questions, Leila Vergious convinced her to join Silver Wolf because Leona would not have to sacrifice her independence and freedom of choice when she joined. Joining an Independent guild came with its own set of issues.

Silver Wolf was in neutral territory. They were not friends with the Magic Council, but neither were they enemies of the establishment. Some argued that joining a neutral guild was a selfish act because a mage did not fully commit to supporting Light or Dark but instead chose a side based on convenience and the size of the reward it offered. Leona believed that her actions spoke for her moral alignment. She was no friend to bandits, necromancers, or slavers and had fought against them many times.

That train of thought was interrupted by Hime's question about which pet she favored.

"Me? I'm a cat person myself. My neighbors in Nebdoui had a pet cat, a Persian with orange fur named Sherbet. He lounged around their house a lot but would sometimes chase insects on the sand or bat at people's feet with his paws. For some reason he liked me and would let me pet him any time I wanted... his fur felt like I was petting a silk carpet." Leona answered Hime's question. It was almost expected that a person named Leona would favor cats as a pet. That was one of life's numerous little funny parts.

"Quill has quite a few pets. I have a fennec fox pet. The Guild Master herself has a pet named Zephyr. And I'm sure the other guild members have pets." Leona answered Hime's question.

"Pets are allowed here, by the way. So if you have one of your own, feel free to bring it. Just don't let it terrorize people and other pets or threaten the guild hall and everything will be OK." Leona added. Hime hesitated to ask something. Since the blonde did not know enough to fill in the gap, she left the matter drop. Instead, she answered Hime's next question.

"I don't see any problem with you staying a night or two. We have plenty of space available, so it shouldn't be an issue." Leona replied to the question. She would take it up with the Guild Master just to be certain, but she doubted that there would be any problems with the arrangement. Besides, the guild had given shelter to lost travelers before and no one had complained.

"We always need researchers, Hime. I'm sure there's some project that needs a helping hand. I'll ask around." Leona said to Hime. Like with Desmond, Leona had to avoid making promises she could not keep. As soon as the conversation concluded, the blonde would ask the guild researchers if any of them needed a helper.